Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation

Women are routinely castigated in some countries for exposing their flesh to nurse. Lactating legislators were on Wednesday given a special room in Tanzania's parliament to nurse their babies in the latest development over breastfeeding in public.

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation

Medical supplies and equipment are in short supply, and many hospitals are shut or barely functional.

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation

Rogue churches in Kenya are delivering trafficked babies to infertile women, a Kenyan nun who rescues stolen children said, as the United States condemned government officials for complicity in the trade.

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation

If women had reliable contraceptives, there would be a sharp drop in the number of unwanted pregnancies.

Source: NewsDeeply

With the rise of smartphones and social media, the problem of revenge pornography is growing across sub-Saharan Africa. But countries such as Zimbabwe have failed to introduce laws to protect victims against this destructive trend.

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation

Ending child marriage would cut population growth and boost girls' educational achievements and earning ability.

Source: AllAfrica
Governments at all levels have been called upon to put policies in place to protect widows from external family members, obnoxious and ill-treatment, as well as set up counseling department to take care of widows' emotional and psychological state.

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation  

When he worked as a nurse in his native South Sudan, Joseph Deng saw many women suffering in pregnancy and childbirth, inspiring him to retrain as a midwife to help cut the number of maternal deaths, one of the highest in the world.

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
During six years of selling sex on the streets and in brothels across Cameroon's capital Yaounde, Rose has been abused, attacked and forced to have unprotected sex by her clients. "There are some ferocious beasts amongst them," said the sex worker, a tall woman in her late thirties, wearing a short black dress and sporting a neck-length wig of straight dark hair. "Some men get violent... sometimes they attack you.

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
Kenya has promised free sanitary pads to all schoolgirls to encourage them to go to school during their periods, rather than stay at home with rags or tissues stuffed in their underwear. Every schoolgirl is Kenya is entitled to "free, sufficient and quality sanitary towels" and a safe place to dispose of them, according to the law introduced this week.

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation

"We cannot allow this immoral behaviour to permeate our primary and secondary schools ... never".

Source: NewsDeeply

A study in Zambia shows that a malaria prevention drug given to pregnant women not only protects them from the disease, but also reduces their risk of contracting sexually transmitted and reproductive tract infections. This, in turn, improves birth outcomes.

Source: Foreign Affairs

When I started working in peacebuilding over 20 years ago, the United Nations was coming under fire because multinational forces working as peacekeepers in Cambodia had sexually abused women and girls and spread HIV/AIDS and other diseases among local populations. In the many years since, UN peacekeepers have been accused of doing the same in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Liberia, and beyond. In 2014, peacekeepers from France and Georgia were implicated in incidents of sexual violence against young children in the Central African Republic. In 2016, following investigations, the UN reported 41 cases of abuse involving peacekeepers from Burundi and Gabon, including eight paternity cases and six filed on behalf of minors.

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation

Worsening drought can drive worsening violence against women in Kenya's northern pastoralist communities - but that is changing.

Source: NewsDeeply

Angela Merkel has put women’s empowerment on the G20 agenda this year. But the only way to fill the looming skills gap is for G20 members to lift their game on getting girls into school, argue Barry Johnston and Taylor Royle from the Malala Fund.

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation

Girls' school attendance in East Africa almost doubles when students of both sexes are taught about sex, relationships and money, a charity said on Monday, highlighting how the attitudes of boys influence the educational success of girls.

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation

Nearly half of the world's working age women have a job or are looking for one, compared to 76 percent of men.

Source: AllAfrica
South African National AIDS Council did not include decriminalising sex work in its HIV strategy plan. On Thursday, sex workers demonstrated during Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa's speech at the South African National AIDS Conference in Durban. Ramaphosa is chairperson of South African National AIDS Council (SANAC).

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
Stigma and rejection from their communities after returning home from armed groups are driving former girl soldiers in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo back into the militias, where they are prey to violence and sexual abuse, a charity said on Monday.

Source: girlsglobe.org 

The situation is all too common…a young girl is looking to fill a void left by an absent or abusive father, and an older man seizes the opportunity to offer comfort and gifts – at a price. The term ‘Sugar Daddy’ is an awfully sweet-sounding way to refer to men who leverage their power and wealth to bait young girls into a sexual trap.

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