Source: All Africa
Women from a rural community in the north of the country are demanding better access to customary farmland. In many regions across Africa, land remains under the control of men thanks to stubborn cultural barriers.
In the small rural community of Bagliga in northern Ghana, a crowd of angry women march towards the chief's palace. They're demanding better access to land. It's a rare sight in this part of the country, where land has long been under control of chiefs and men.
Source: AllAfrica
Migori Governor Okoth Obado has been arrested over the murder of his pregnant girlfriend Sharon Otieno.
Mr Obado was on Friday morning grilled by detectives at the headquarters of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) on Kiambu Road in Nairobi.He spent the better part of the morning with detectives and sources told the Nation that he was expected to record a statement on the matter.
His arrest comes a day after detectives and government scientists confirmed that the baby boy ripped from Ms Sharon Otieno’s womb was his, thus putting the Migori governor at the heart of investigations into the abduction and killing of the Rongo University student.
Source: AllAfrica
A Public Health Scientist, Suzanne Bell on Thursday said the abortion rate by women of reproductive age in Nigeria has risen between 1.8 and 2.7 million.
Mrs Bell, who made the disclosure at a dissemination exercise of the Performance Monitoring and Accountability 2020 (PMA 2020) in Abuja, said that the rise was as a result of unintended pregnancies.
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
For almost two decades, 42-year-old Patience earned a steady income sending girls from Nigeria to Europe for sex work, using black magic to stop the women from fleeing.
Now she is afraid the illegal trade could kill her.
During a ceremony in March, Oba Ewuare II, leader of the historic kingdom of Benin in southern Nigeria, invoked curses on anyone who used witchcraft to aid illegal migration. Since then, anecdotal evidence suggests the trafficking has slowed although it is too soon for firm data to be collated. The number of female Nigerians arriving in Italy by boat surged to more than 11,000 in 2016 from 1,500 in 2014, with at least four in five forced into prostitution, according to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Source: Daily Monitor
Rwandan opposition politician Victoire Umuhoza Ingabire has vowed to push for the opening up of the political space days after she was released from prison following a presidential pardon.
Ms Ingabire was freed on Saturday September 15 after serving eight of her 15-year sentence.She had been arrested in 2010 soon after returning from exile in the Netherlands seeking to contest for the presidency.She was charged with inciting revolt against the government, forming armed groups to destabilise the country, and minimising the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
Source: Metro
Girls in Kenya are forced to have sex with older men because it is the only way they can access sanitary products due to period poverty and the stigma surrounding menstruation. Research by Unicef has found that 65% of females in the Kibera slum, the largest urban slum in Africa, had traded sex for the sanitary products. The charity also found that 54% of Kenyan girls said they had problems accessing feminine hygiene products and 22% of school girls are having to buy their own.
Death of sisters aged 10 and 11 undermines hopes of change inspired by announcement of landmark prosecution
Two more girls in Somalia have died after undergoing female genital mutilation, just weeks after a high-profile case prompted the attorney general to announce the first prosecution against the practice in the country’s history.
Two sisters, aged 10 and 11, bled to death last week after they were cut in the remote pastoral village of Arawda North in Galdogob district, Puntland, said activist Hawa Aden Mohamed of the Galkayo Centre.
Source: The Jordan Times
ZOMBA, MALAWI — When I was eight years old, a family friend told my father that he thought I was destined for leadership. My dad never let me forget that heady observation, and as a result of his constant encouragement, I took every opportunity I had to pursue our friend’s prophecy. Today, I owe much of my success to my late father, whose belief in me was unwavering.
Source: Daily Monitor
The absence of female police officers at majority of the police posts in the districts of Gomba and Mukono, is hampering the fight against sexual violence against women, an official has said.
Ms Noor Nakibuuka Musisi, an official from a Center for Health, Human Rights and Development, explained earlier today that the absence of the female police officers has made some women/girls to fear to report sexual abuses committed against them.
Ms Nakibuuka, named Mamba Police Post in Gomba District and Nkonge Police Post Mukono as some of the posts without female officers attached to them.
To solve the crisis of violence against women we need to look to boys’ experience of childhood in South Africa. Behaviour disorders that lead to violence in later life are already present at the age of ten. This is not to say that all boys who experience abuse become violent. But if we want to heal our communities we must turn our attention to cycles of abuse that begin at a very early age.
In Diepsloot, a township north of Johannesburg, sexual and gender-based violence is a pervasive issue. In a 2014 survey, 76% of those questioned said they or someone close to them had been a victim of violence in the home or from an intimate partner. Domestic violence was the most prevalent problem, followed by rape and other forms of sexual violence (37%).
Source: UNFPA
On 1 August, just one week after the World Health Organization declared an end to the ninth Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the tenth struck.
“We had two sick people in the centre – a man and a youth – who died of unknown causes,” recalled Sister Yvette Kanyere, manager of the Mangina Reference Health Centre. “They were bleeding everywhere and we did not know what had happened [to them].”
Situated in North Kivu Province, Mangina is now the epicentre of the deadly outbreak. In just over a month, more than 130 people have been infected, and 90 have died.
Source: Face2FaceAfrica
Recently- re-elected president of Mali, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita named 35-year-old Kamissa Camara as the minister for foreign affairs in his recent cabinet reshuffle. With a rich background in foreign affairs and policies, Camara becomes the first woman to hold this post in the history of Mali.
Before her appointment as the minister, she served as the diplomatic advisor to President Keita. She is also the founder and co-chair of the Sahel Strategy Forum, which provides a platform to stakeholders to promote peace, security and development across the Sahel.
Source: BBC Africa
If you are a man and mulling over the idea of running for president in 2019 for one of Nigeria's main parties then deep pockets are required.
Campaigning, of course, is going to cost money, but both the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the People's Democratic Party (PDP) charge presidential hopefuls who want to run in the party primaries tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege. The APC, the party of President Muhammadu Buhari, wants $125,000 (£97,000) for a nomination form. An opposition PDP presidential nomination is cheap by comparison - just $33,000.
Women, on the other hand, get a discount - half price for the APC or totally free if you want to try your luck with PDP. But neither party has ever nominated a woman since the return of democracy in 1999 and only one woman, Sarah Jibril, has run in the primaries.
She gained just one vote in the 2011 contest.
Source: The Citizen
The deputy president said government is doing all it can to stop violence against women, and only a fundamental change in the way men think and behave will help.At a parliamentary question and answer session today, Deputy President David Mabuza said that “men must change” if the scourge of gender-based violence in South Africa is to be overcome.
Source: CGTN Africa
A new law in Morocco criminalising violence against women goes into effect on Wednesday, in what critics say is merely a first step in the right direction. Approved by parliament in February the new law bans forced marriages and imposes tougher penalties on perpetrators of various types of violence committed both in the private and public spheres, including rape, sexual harassment and domestic abuse.
Source: The East African
President John Magufuli has urged Tanzanian women to "give up contraceptive methods" insisting his country needs more people, local media reported Monday.
"You have cattle. You are big farmers. You can feed your children. Why then resort to birth control? This is my opinion, I see no reason to control births in Tanzania," Magufuli said in a speech on Sunday, according to The Citizen daily newspaper.Source: The Standard
Joana Mamombe stood out as the youngest MP in the new Parliament when Zimbabwe’s newest crop of legislators took their oaths last week following the controversial July 30 elections.
Mamombe of the MDC Alliance replaced Jessie Majome as the Harare West representative.
The 25-year-old legislator, a molecular biologist, says one of her major priorities in the next five years is to fight cancer.
Mamombe (JM) told our senior parliamentary reporter Veneranda Langa (VL) that she also wants to use her five-year term in the legislature to advance the interests of youths.
Source: Daily Observer
As United Nations (UN) reveal an increase in the number of girls not in school worldwide, Bridge-Liberia is expected to officially launch a new campaign dubbed GirlSuperPower, calling on Liberian policymakers to prioritize the need for gender equality in education.The launch of the campaign, which will bring together Liberian women stakeholders, with a panel discussion on 20th September 2018 on the topic, ‘‘Using Education as a Tool for Girls’ Empowerment,’ several Bridge students, predominantly girls, will also be in attendance at Kendeja Public School in Paynesville.
According to Bridge Public Affairs office, the launching of the GirlSuperPower campaign is based on reports that ahead of the 73rd United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, UN data revealed an increase of over 6% in the number of girls not in primary school, in just one year. This is a key metric for UN Sustainable Development Goal 4: achieving quality education for all, which now appears to be moving in the wrong direction. Equal education for girls is an unfulfilled promise for the majority of the poorest families in Liberia.
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
Sex outside of marriage in Mauritania is officially punishable by flogging, jail time, or in cases of adultery, death by stoning. Women raped in Mauritania are discouraged from reporting the crime because they themselves can be jailed for having sex outside of marriage, a rights group said on Wednesday.
Source: New Times Rwanda
Women will take 67.5 per cent of seats in the next Lower House going by the latest results from the just-concluded parliamentary elections.
The National Electoral Commission (NEC) Tuesday released provisional results from legislative elections, which saw the governing RPF-Inkotanyi take most seats out of the 53 that are openly contested for.
RPF won 40 seats in the house after garnering 74 per cent of the votes cast by 6.6 million Rwandans who turned out for the direct vote on Sunday and Monday.