Every other December, scores of Tanzanian girls endure what's colloquially known as "cutting season." Now, new mapping technology can help activists locate girls who might be in danger—and get them to safe houses before it's too late.
Source: Medium
It was a long walk home for Maria on that day in Malawi in February 2011. She had been trying for two years to become pregnant, and the nurse at the clinic had just confirmed that she was indeed pregnant with her first child! But the nurse also explained that she was HIV positive, and needed to take steps to protect her unborn child from becoming HIV positive, and for her own health.
Source: Daily Nation
Mary Mugure still recalls the Sunday she took her son to be baptised at a Pentecostal church. "I was turned away," she says. Reason? "I had him out of wedlock. They told me he was conceived in sin," she says.
Source: THE CITIZEN
The government plans to produce skilled anaesthesiologists to promote the best practice in the fields of anaesthesia in the country in a fresh bid to avert maternal mortality among Tanzanian women.
Source: ipsnews.net
Indigenous women, while experiencing the first and worst effects of climate change globally, are often in the frontline in struggles to protect the environment.
Source: Thompson Reuters Foundation
After Ebola, more girls in Liberia are missing out on school to help their families, while those in education are pressured to have sex or pay bribes for grades or simply to sit exams, a charity said on Monday.
Source: menafm.com
Climate change is negatively affecting many regions of the world. The impact is more pronounced in regions with limited economic resources to adapt and highly reliant on natural resources. In East Africa, for instance, a large portion of the population depends on rain fed agriculture for their livelihoods. This makes them especially susceptible to changes in climate.
First Lady Jeannette Kagame and other representatives of governments and international organisations who attended the now-concluded Transform Africa Summit have expressed the need for strategic interventions to bridge the gender digital divide.
Source: News Deeply
Women are hugely under-represented in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). UNESCO’s Women in Science report found that they account for only 29 percent of researchers worldwide. In sub-Saharan Africa, this figure stands just slightly higher, at 30 percent.
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
Parents of some of the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram militants in northeast Nigeria three years ago hailed on Thursday their planned return to school in September, but said the families should be involved in the "healing process".
Ghana is set to have its second successive female Chief Justice with the appointment of Justice Sophia Akuffo, all but confirmed. Her nomination is to be officially announced by the President at a press briefing later today.
The role of the activist within Rwanda is extremely fraught as it involves balancing the desire and need to express oneself in order to build a better future for the country, while entering increasingly dangerous territory for even attempting to do so. Diane Rwigara’s bravery is a call to other activists within Rwandan to begin to assert themselves peacefully on their government, reminding it that they want to be heard, reminding it that they too are part of its developmental project.
The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, has said the federal government has concluded plans to improve the standard of midwifery practices in the country. This is coming as a Nollywood actor and producer, Jim Iyke, was unveiled as the Special Envoy/Goodwill Ambassador for Maternal, Newborn and Child health. Adewole made this known yesterday during the commemoration of the 2017 International Day of the Midwife (IDM) in Abuja.
Author: Alice Mapenzi Kubo
Sources: Pambazuka News and African Studies Centre Leiden
When Ghana attempted to restructure the women-dominated shea industry in line with foreign imposed structural adjustment programmes, the women protested. Since then, technological assistance and other initiatives by the government in collaboration with various knowledge institutions have enabled women shea producers to expand their professional knowledge and networks, and introduced them to new markets.
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
At midday in Abimbo village on the Kenyan shore of Lake Victoria, 32-year-old Rachel Atieno is busy spreading out her silver cyprinid fish to dry in the sun. Atieno, a mother of five, has sold the fish since her husband died 10 years ago leaving her to support her family. With no other income, she was left with no option but to trade sex with the fishermen for a share of their catch. Sex-for-fish, known locally as "jaboya", is common practice in Abimbo village in western Kenya's Siaya County and throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
The Makerere University academic Dr Stella Nyanzi has been released on bail after a four weeks behind bars. The don is facing cybercrime related charges. The Buganda Road Court on Wednesday granted Dr Nyanzi a non-cash bail of $2,857 (Ush10 million), with sureties of similar amount. She is accused of cyber harassment after allegedly referring to President Yoweri Museveni as a "pair of buttocks" on her Facebook post.
For most of her life, Saida Soukat’s days were filled with the routines of the farm, working the fields and minding the cattle. A recent Tuesday found her doing something far different, though, speaking before a group of women during their biweekly protests to demand a halt in the state-sanctioned privatization of traditional tribal collectives, called the Sulaliyyate lands.
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
Some of the Chibok schoolgirls abducted three years ago by Islamist Boko Haram militants refused to be part of a group of 82 girls freed at the weekend, a mediator involved in the release said on Monday.
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
Kenya will double maternity leave to six months from three if a bill before parliament is passed in a bid to boost the health of mothers and babies.
As the sun’s morning rays stretch across the sky, a long line of women carrying bundles of firewood on their heads walks past the Sipepa Rural Hospital in remote western Zimbabwe. They proceed to the hospital’s backyard where close to 900 villagers have lived in tents since their homes were destroyed by flooding after a tropical storm, Dineo, hit in February.