Hundreds of people gathered at the University of Cape Town on Friday at a vigil for victims of femicide in South Africa. Anger is rising across the country as the bodies of nine women have been found near Johannesburg in just two months.
Published On 19 Sep 202619 Sep 2026
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The Eiffel Tower was temporarily closed on Monday after workers went on strike to protest the sidelining of female staff during a private visit by a Hindu religious group.
The tower, which has since reopened, shut after members of Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS), a global socio‑spiritual Hindu denomination, visited the site. Female staff were reportedly asked to give way to male staff for the group’s tour, prompting protests from the workers’ union, outrage from French politicians and an apology from the Hindu group.
Here is more about BAPS and how the controversy unfolded.
The Eiffel Tower closed after staff walked out over the removal of women staff during a weekend visit by BAPS.
The Societe d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel, or SETE, which runs the Paris landmark, acknowledged that the group had requested the Saturday visit be organised in a way that limited “interactions with women”, and said “these conditions should not have been accepted”.
The BAPS monks, or sadhus, practise strict celibacy, which requires them to avoid physical contact with women and being alone in their company, and to minimise personal interaction or attention towards the opposite sex.
Wider community members of BAPS are not bound by these celibacy rules. According to news reports, the BAPS delegation visiting the Eiffel Tower comprised both monks and community members.
Eiffel Tower staff said in a statement that they condemned “professional instructions that led to female employees being sidelined, replaced and made invisible because of their sex” during the visit by the delegation.
“Some were asked to leave their posts and withdraw to other areas. In some posts they were replaced by men. And all female employees were instructed not to go through or cross certain areas while the delegation was present,” the staff union said, adding they were shocked to have been put in such a situation.
Paris Mayor Emmanuel Gregoire said an investigation would be launched “as soon as possible”. In a post on social media, he said he was aware of the employees’ anger and agreed their dissatisfaction was legitimate.
BAPS was founded in India in 1907 and began expanding internationally from the 1960s. It is a spiritual organisation which works on community building, constructing temples, helping with disaster relief and running medical camps, environmental drives and educational programmes.
It now also runs an extensive network of temples and cultural centres across the world, including more than 100 in the United States and more than 1,000 worldwide, including across Europe, Africa and Asia. BAPS also runs a temple in Paris.
On Tuesday, the BAPS Paris account posted a statement on X responding to the controversy.
“To our knowledge, at no time was access to the Eiffel Tower denied to anyone,” the account wrote, originally in French.
“Nevertheless, we wish to offer our sincere apologies to anyone who may have been hurt or inconvenienced by this situation,” it added.
Leaders within France expressed outrage over reports of women being removed from the premises.
Aurore Berge, the minister delegate for gender equality and fight against discrimination in France, wrote in an X post on Monday: “In France, we do not ask women to step aside. No dogma, no religion is superior to the laws of the Republic.”
Yael Braun-Pivet, president of the National Assembly, wrote in a post on social media: “Welcoming others never means giving up our values. In France, women are fully present in public life. No one tells them to become invisible.”
Former French President Francois Hollande, now an MP, wrote on X on Tuesday: “We do not ask women to step aside to satisfy religious demands.”
He expressed support for the Eiffel Tower staff who walked out.
“Equality between women and men is a fundamental achievement of our Republic. It applies everywhere, to all women and all men, without exception,” Hollande wrote.
Parliamentarian and former PM Michel Barnier wrote on X: “It is therefore utterly unacceptable that an order aimed at making women disappear from this space could have been issued.”
Barnier added that “women are not hidden. They are not erased. They are respected, and their freedom is defended”, demanding an explanation from the SETE.
Jordan Bardella, the president of the far-right National Rally, wrote on X on Tuesday: “This degrading demand should never have been met. In a free country like France, gender equality is respected, and no religious reason can override women’s dignity.”
Prominent far-right MP and leader of the National Rally (RN), Marine Le Pen wrote in an X post: “In France, we will never accept that the presence of women be ‘limited.’”
BAPS is not officially part of a political party in India, and has long insisted that it is apolitical.
But researchers have long pointed to a close, cooperative relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.
In fact, the Eiffel Tower closure came just a day after Modi virtually inaugurated the BAPS temple in Paris.
Modi also attended the physical inauguration of the BAPS temple in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2024.
BAPS has faced a series of high-profile controversies in the past.
During a landmark legal battle in 1966, BAPS leaders argued in court that their sect was not part of Hinduism but a distinct religion. They did so in an attempt to avoid the Bombay Harijan Temple Entry Act, which required Hindu temples to open their doors to Dalits, a historically marginalised caste group. The Indian Supreme Court rejected the appeal made by BAPS.
In 2013, two former BAPS monks filed a complaint accusing senior BAPS leaders of sexual assault dating back to the 1970s. BAPS leaders denied the allegations. The complaint did not result in any publicly reported criminal charges.
In 2021, a US federal class‑action lawsuit accused BAPS of exploiting low‑caste labourers from India to work on its temples. The case, brought on behalf of about 200 Indian workers, alleged they were lured from India, coerced into employment agreements, and forced to work more than 12 hours a day with only five days off a year at a temple in Robbinsville Township, New Jersey.
The suit says they were paid as little as $1.20 an hour, far below the US federal minimum wage of $7.25 and New Jersey’s $12 statewide minimum.
A US federal investigation into labour trafficking at the Robbinsville temple has since been closed without criminal charges, but the civil class‑action lawsuit brought by the workers continues.
The Eiffel Tower was shut on Monday after staff went on strike claiming women were asked to step out of sight during a visit by a Hindu group. Around 100 people from the BAPS Hindu movement were among the delegation as France inaugurated its first major Hindu temple.
Published On 8 Sep 20268 Sep 2026
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Two Muslim female journalists allege they were detained and brutally assaulted by police in India’s capital, Delhi. Police have denied the allegations, claiming the journalists were brought to the station over an illegal parking dispute.
Published On 4 Sep 20264 Sep 2026
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Truth commission to be established after two expert reports failed to agree whether scheme constituted genocide.
Published On 28 Aug 202628 Aug 2026
Greenland is establishing a truth and reconciliation commission surrounding a decades-long forced contraceptive scheme against Indigenous girls and women, after two expert reports failed to agree whether it constituted genocide.
From the 1960s to the 1990s, at least 4,000 Greenlandic Inuits – including girls as young as 12 – received intrauterine devices (IUDs) or contraceptive injections, often without their consent or knowledge, a joint Danish-Greenlandic inquiry found last year.
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That inquiry found the practice was intended to reduce birth rates and family sizes, which Danish authorities at the time viewed as a way to improve living standards and social and health conditions in Greenland, an Arctic island and semi-sovereign territory of Denmark, with a population of 57,000.
Greenland’s government tasked a four-member commission in 2024 with investigating the campaign, which led some victims to suffer serious infections, scarring of the fallopian tubes or removal of the uterus. Some were later unable to have children.
But the experts could not reach a unanimous conclusion, Greenland’s Justice Minister Marianne Paviasen told reporters on Friday, with one report stating there was no genocide and the other saying the extent of the violations could not be established.
“We cannot say, on behalf of the government, whether there was genocide. This is something we can continue to debate,” Paviasen said.
Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said the reconciliation commission would “not be about assigning blame, but about uncovering the truth with a view to genuine reconciliation”.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Copenhagen would “handle the political process together with the government of Greenland”.
The Greenlandic Siumut Party, however, urged the genocide question to be settled by “a competent and independent international court”.
“Today we could have been far more Greenlanders,” the party added.
Victims have questioned why no Greenlandic Inuit were appointed as experts while recounting painful histories dug up by the panel.
“For me, this is not just about history or politics. It’s my body, my life, and my right to self-determination,” Henriette Berthelsen told the AFP news agency.
“And once again, I see that it is others who will investigate and define what was done to me and to other Inuit women,” she added.
Inger Platou, 70, told Reuters she had woken up from what she had been told was a minor operation only to discover an IUD had been inserted without her consent.
“It turns out we were treated like animals,” she said. “Without consent, they just wanted to stop women from giving birth or having children. It was a very inhumane act.”
Complications from the coil left her unable to become pregnant, she said.
Denmark apologised for the scheme last year, with Frederiksen describing “systematic discrimination” against Greenlanders.
On Thursday, the Danish parliament agreed that women affected by the forced contraception campaign can claim compensation of up to 300,000 Danish crowns ($46,758) each.