Source: Human Rights Watch
L’Union Africaine devrait fournir des lignes directrices et encourager des réformes politiques afin de garantir que les filles puissent poursuivre leur scolarité.
Source: Courrier international
Le coût de la violence sexiste en Afrique du Sud représente une perte sèche pour l’économie du pays. En 2019, la première puissance industrielle du continent africain a perdu plus de 2 milliards d’euros, entre soins médicaux et procédures judiciaires.
Source: DW
Almost one in every two African women has experienced violence at some point during her life. But perpetrators silence their victims by saying the woman is to blame, or that she provoked the abuse. How can this change?
SOURCE: Capital FM
The just concluded elections are a testament that with the right laws, policies and affirmative action, women can thrive in whatever they set out to achieve.
Source: IndustriALL Global Union
Pourquoi est-il important que les syndicats d’Afrique subsaharienne adoptent des démarches féministes dans leurs campagnes et activités?
Source: LeFaso.net
La Commission Africaine des Droits de l’Homme et des Peuples a formulé 9 recommandations à l’encontre des Etats en ce qui concerne la violence numérique. Elles ont été établies lors de sa 72ème session ordinaire, qui a eu lieu virtuellement, du 19 juillet au 2 août 2022.
Source: France24
Kenyans have elected a record number of women to positions of power in this month's polls, with the list including seven governors, three senators and 26 MPs, in a step towards gender equality.
Source: ONU Femmes
ONU Femmes a lancé un projet pour renforcer l’autonomisation économique des femmes du secteur du vivrier en Côte d’Ivoire.
Source: ADIAC-Congo
La ministre de la Promotion de la Femme et de l’Intégration de la Femme au Développement, Inès Bertille Nefer Ingani, a invité, le 5 août, à Brazzaville, à l’occasion de la célébration de la Journée de la Femme Africaine, les institutions nationales et internationales à oeuvrer davantage pour l’émancipation financière des femmes.
Source: IT News Africa
Cybersecurity awareness firm KnowBe4 Africa has released the results of their latest survey titled the 2022 KnowBe4 Women’s Day Survey, gaining insights from more than 200 women from across the technology industry in South Africa.
Source: CRTV
La ministre de la Promotion de la Femme et de la Famille, Marie-Thérèse Abena Ondoa, s’exprimait ansi le 2 août, à l’occasion de la célébration de la 60e édition de la journée de la Femme Africaine.
Source: ONU Info
Les services de protection font cruellement défaut aux réfugiés et aux migrants effectuant des voyages périlleux depuis le Sahel et la Corne de l’Afrique vers l’Afrique du Nord et l’Europe, y compris les survivants de la traite des êtres humains, a averti l’agence des Nations Unies pour les réfugiés (HCR), à l’occasion de la Journée mondiale contre la traite des personnes (30 juillet).
Source: The Conversation Africa
The world’s climate is changing. All of us will ultimately be affected by climatic shifts – but some will be hit harder than others.
Source: LeFaso.net
Le Burkina Faso a pris part aux travaux de la cinquantième (50ème) session ordinaire du Conseil des Droits de l’Homme (CDH), avec une délégation nationale, conduite par SEM Dieudonné W. Désiré Sougouri, Ambassadeur, Représentant permanent du Burkina Faso à Genève.
ATTENTION: mentions de violences sexuelles, viols, meurtres
Source: ONU Info
Le Haut-Commissariat des Nations Unies aux droits de l’Homme a publié ce lundi deux rapports sur des évènements extrêmement troublants survenus récemment en République centrafricaine, pouvant être qualifiés de crimes de guerre et de crimes contre l’humanité.
SOURCE: THE POINT.
Seedy S.K. Njie, the deputy speaker of the National Assembly has underscored the government's continued commitment to the empowerment of women in the country, saying "if we are really serious and committed about development, we must be serious in gender equality and women's empowerment."
Source: TV5 Monde
En Sierra Leone, l’avortement est interdit sauf si la vie de la femme est en danger. C’est aussi l’un des pays où le taux de mortalité maternelle est l’un des plus élevé au monde. Face à ce constat, le président lui-même s’est engagé à faire bouger les choses. Le gouvernement a approuvé une nouvelle loi pour une “maternité sans risque”, qui sera soumise prochainement au vote du Parlement: légaliser l’avortement, et ainsi révoquer une loi qui remonte à 1861.
Source: Agence Ecofin
Entre l’impact du VIH et de la covid-19, de nombreuses jeunes filles sont privées d’éducation en Afrique. Au sommet de l’UA, 10 pays de la région, 5 agences de l’ONU et d’autres partenaires se sont engagés pour maintenir ces dernières dans les écoles et leur donner une éducation de qualité.
SOURCE: DW
The abortion debate in Africa is going in the opposite direction to the one in the US. Experts say that legislation in countries such as Benin and South Africa is becoming more progressive. But there are exceptions.
SOURCE: The Conversation Africa
Adolescent girls and young women in sub-Saharan Africa have a very high risk of acquiring HIV. The latest global AIDS update report suggests that a staggering six out of seven new infections among 15-19-year-olds in sub-Saharan Africa are among girls.
Entrenched gender inequalities make young women and girls more vulnerable to coercive behaviour that leaves them unable to negotiate safe sex.
But there is a method for adolescent girls and young women to protect themselves from HIV without having to convince a partner to use a condom at the time of sex. Pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, is a pill containing antiretroviral drugs that can help prevent HIV. If taken consistently, PrEP can reduce the risk of sexually transmitted HIV infection by about 99%.
HIV prevention medication has been part of HIV prevention efforts since around 2014. Globally, PrEP has contributed to declines in new HIV infections among high-risk populations. But this does not seem to be the case for adolescent girls and young women in sub-Saharan Africa.
In a recent study, my colleagues and I at the Manicaland Centre for Public Health Research interviewed healthcare providers in eastern Zimbabwe to understand the low uptake of PrEP and what they would recommend to improve it.
We asked 12 healthcare providers about their experiences of making HIV prevention services available to young people. We asked them specifically about PrEP. We also invited the healthcare providers to share their top three recommendations for improving access to PrEP for young women.
This is the first study of its kind to focus on the perspectives of healthcare providers in southern Africa. Considering their perspectives is particularly important. Healthcare providers are not only at the front-line in the delivery of PrEP. They often live in the same community and understand the socio-cultural contexts of their clients. This combination of experiences is valuable and must inform future programming.
Their recommendations point to six actions.
Run PrEP awareness campaigns, specifically at schools, giving adolescent girls and young women information about PrEP and how to access it. The campaigns would also have to debunk myths about PrEP only being for women engaged in sex work – a common myth in the study area – as well as fears about potential side effects. Campaigns targeting adolescent girls and young women must be accompanied by community campaigns. These should encourage parents to talk to their children about HIV prevention methods, including PrEP, and to shift community perceptions about PrEP as a pill that encourages promiscuity.
Involve adolescent girls and young women in the rollout of PrEP. Young women must design, feature in and deliver the awareness campaigns. Young women need role models of peers on PrEP.
Eliminate costs associated with PrEP uptake. PrEP is freely accessible in many sub-Saharan African countries. But getting to the clinic, taking time off work to go to the clinic for refills and monitoring, and getting registered at the clinic may come at a cost. In resource poor settings, these small associated costs can be prohibitive and need to be eliminated, either through reimbursements or through an incentive-based payment system.
Strengthen the human resource capacity of health services to deliver PrEP. PrEP is still relatively new in many sub-Saharan African settings, including Zimbabwe. Although PrEP has been available in Zimbabwe since 2018, it has been limited to certain population groups through demonstration projects. PrEP services to adolescent girls and young women are still limited and in their infancy. A young woman looking for PrEP is therefore unlikely to find specialised and dedicated staff who is ready and available to assist. Investments are needed to make available a cadre of trained prescribers who can deliver PrEP to young women in a professional and timely manner.
Make PrEP services youth and female friendly. Strong gender norms subject many adolescent girls and young women in sub-Saharan Africa to different forms of social control around their sexuality. The healthcare providers recognised their role in this. Young women fear going to the clinic, worried they might be seen by community members. They also fear the attitudes and indiscretions of healthcare providers, who may disapprove of a young girl’s use of PrEP, and may tell parents that their girl is sexually active. Healthcare workers fully recognise these challenges and call for the delivery of PrEP through sexual and reproductive health hubs that are discreet, youth friendly, and staffed by young and sex-positive healthcare workers. They also recognise that such services must be open outside school hours if they are to reach adolescent girls.
Improve the PrEP pill and its packaging. The pill is big and some people find it uncomfortable to swallow. Some may also experience significant side effects. Its packaging challenges secret PrEP use.
A recent report by the Zimbabwe Ministry of Health and Child Care found young women to have an HIV incidence more than nine times higher than that of their male peers. HIV prevention service planners looking to increase access and uptake of PrEP among adolescent girls and young women in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in the region must take heed of these findings.
Many more actions will of course be needed for the effective rollout of PrEP for adolescent girls and young women in sub-Saharan Africa.
However, the six actions emerging from our interviews with healthcare workers in Zimbabwe highlight solutions to some key challenges.