Selma Franssen

BRUSSELS - In the coming years, more forest should be created in Flanders. Minister Demir wants to invest 121 million euros to create 4,000 extra hectares of forest by 2024. A good thing, but how good are we at protecting and planting trees outside the forest?

BRUSSELS - The five Flemish universities have made considerable progress in the area of gender equality in recent years. Yet at this rate it would take until 2050 before there is gender balance among academic staff. Only slightly more than one in four professors in Flanders is female - while there is no shortage of highly educated women.

BELGIUM - Fourteen years ago, Karen * gave birth to a daughter. A girl like other girls, but with a Y-chromosome, that's how Karen describes it herself. This Y-chromosome caused her daughter to develop testicles during pregnancy. Her body was insensitive to the testosterone that the testicles produce, so she developed as a girl. Coincidentally, Karen knew that something like that sometimes happens. Shortly before the delivery, she saw a documentary about children born with a variation in sex characteristics. She was already startled by the lack of specific support for parents of these children. After the birth of her own child, she experienced it herself.