Source: allAfrica
In late 2018, Sierra Leone's First Lady, Fatima Bio, opened a national campaign "Hands Off Our Girls." Her campaign made big promises to reduce child marriages and teenage pregnancies in the country, in part to tackle the spike in teenage pregnancies following widespread rape during the Ebola crisis. Reflecting on this campaign, President Julius Maada Bio stated: "We have wasted a lot of time in restricting the potentials of women and girls."
Source: Daily Nation
Oscar-winning Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o made historians sit up last week when Channel 4 television showed her documentary, "Warrior Women", about the fearsome but virtually unknown Agoji females from West Africa’s past.
Source: The New Humanitarian
London & Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo — When TNH visited the town of Dekoa in Central African Republic last March to investigate the situation of women and girls who had brought allegations of rape, sexual abuse, and exploitation against UN peacekeepers from Burundi and Gabon in 2015-16, few if any of them knew the status of their claims. Now, an internal UN draft report obtained by TNH reveals a litany of mistakes made by investigators that may explain why so many cases have been dismissed and why, according to UN data, there hasn't been a single prosecution.
Source: UNFPA Press Release
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Regional Office for West and Central Africa is organizing a regional consultation on Gender-Based Violence in humanitarian settings in West and Central Africa.This regional consultation will be held at the Pullman Hotel in Dakar, Senegal, from 28 to 29 October 2019. It will bring together gender-based violence coordinators in countries in crisis, members of the Regional Working Group on Protection (RWGP) as well as bilateral partners and donor countries.
Source: United Nations Press Release
Pace of Change Too Slow, Says Secretary-General as Civil Society Briefers Spotlight Abandonment, Sidelining of Women Activists
Source: Daily Maverick
Limited, incomplete or incorrect knowledge and information related to sex, sexuality and sexual and reproductive health and rights among the youth contribute to gender-based violence, discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, HIV, teenage pregnancies and other adverse health outcomes.
Source: AfricaFeeds
In a bid to keep its pregnant women fit and healthy, Rwanda has launched its first-ever public exercises for pregnant women.
Source: Equality Now
In October 2019 the Tanzania Court of Appeal upheld the landmark 2016 ruling by the High Court against child marriage.
“We’re very happy with the judgement from the Court of Appeal which has retained the High Court’s 2016 decision that increased the minimum age of marriage to 18.
Source: The Guardian
A lesbian activist in a rural town has developed a new strategy to reach those most at risk of HIV.
Source: Reuters
The 17-year-old South Sudanese refugee finally managed to escape after three months as a prisoner in a Cairo apartment where she was repeatedly gang raped, only to realize that she had become pregnant by one of her attackers.
Source: Voice of America
By: Naba Mohiedeen
Sudan's ruling council has appointed the country's first woman chief justice. The appointment is seen as another step forward for female representation in the new transitional government.
Source: The Art Newspaper
The growing sucess of female African artists marks an exciting shift in the market.
Source: The South African
Between Meghan Cremer, Uyinene Mrwetyana, and Government “calling on women to speak out and not allow themselves to become victims,” women all over the country are scared and angry.
This is no country for women, if the news is anything to go by. We shouldn’t have to rely on apps to keep us safe in our homes or when we go to the post office, but here we are.
Source: BBC Africa
By:
About 450 million people worldwide currently suffer from a mental health condition, making it one of the leading causes of ill health. Could it be that others within their community hold the key to help solve this problem?
Source: Guardian
Brain Squad, a group of five Nigerian girls, has invented an app that helps less privileged children go to school.
Source: theguardian
By Jack Losh
By creating vibrant economic networks, women in the Central African Republic are coming to terms with the violence they have suffered during their country’s civil warThe bakers of Bamingui have lost loved ones to war. Rebel soldiers drive past their roadside bread ovens daily. A spectre of violence remains. Regardless, Yvette Abaka and her female baking collective make dough and roll with it.
Source: Africa News
By: DIBIE IKE Michael
French President Emmanuel Macron and G7 leaders on Sunday approved a package of $251 million in support of the African Development Bank’s AFAWA initiative to support women entrepreneurs in Africa.
Source: Africa Renewal
For many people, climate change is about shrinking glaciers, rising sea levels, longer and more intense heatwaves, and other extreme and unpredictable weather patterns. But for women pastoralists—livestock farmers in the semi-arid lands of Kenya—climate change has forced drastic changes to everyday life, including long and sometimes treacherous journeys to get water.
Source: independent
By: Umit Bektas
After six years abroad, Khadija Saleh returned to Sudan in March to join protesters in the streets demanding change. She was taking part in a sit-in near the defence ministry in Khartoum on 3 June when security forces stormed in. The area had become a centre for anti-government protests.
Source: time
By Jillian Keenan and Nasibo Kabale
Hours before dawn at Soko ya Nadhif market in Garissa, Kenya, middle-aged women in neon hijabs shout orders at men. They glide smoothly, like ghosts, through the darkness, groaning under the weight of heavy bags of fresh, long-stemmed leaves, each emblazoned with a woman’s name. They work quickly: just one day earlier, on July 4, 2019, a rumored threat from al-Shabaab, the Somali terrorist group just across the border, had sent everyone at the market scurrying to safety and cost them a day of work. Now the pressure to make up time is palpable – and so is the sense of looming violence.