Source:All Africa
A high-level review of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 1325, expected to be released in October this year, provides an opportunity for policymakers to move beyond the rhetoric of gender mainstreaming and start putting words into practice. Resolution 1325 underlines the need for gender-sensitive approaches to peace and stability in post-conflict contexts.
Source: Think Progress
Hilda Tadria got to work early on educating women. She was just a schoolgirl when she began tutoring women twice her age in proper hygiene and literacy skills. Despite decades of experience, however, she’s still sometimes shocked by how deeply gender inequality is embedded in her native Uganda.
Source: All Africa
Voicing concern over the continued killing of women and girls, the United Nations anti-crime chief today issued a strong call to end such acts, as well as to unravel the gender at the heart of the "dreadful daily experiences of violence" that blight so many of their lives.
Source: All Africa
The South African Defence Force (SANDF) has met its gender equity target of having a representation of 30 percent of women in the force.
Source: All Africa
EMPOWERMENT women economically boosts both gender equality and wealth of nations.
Source: The Herald
As Africa Day on May 25 beckons, the continent has committed to making gender equality and women's empowerment central to its development Agenda 2063. This will see the AU not addressing gender as a separate issue but integrating it across its various sectors.
Source: Humanosphere
One of the international community’s primary anti-poverty and pro-equity goals has been to increase the proportion of children receiving education, starting with ensuring all children at least get a primary education.
Source: Telegraph
Zakhe, 28, lives in Soweto in Johannesburg. She is a lesbian and a victim of a horrifying growing trend in South Africa: corrective rape. "They tell me that they will kill me, they will rape me and after raping me, I will become a girl," she tells ActionAid. "I will become a straight girl."
Source: UN News Centre
Almost two years since the eruption of the conflict in South Sudan, the situation continues to deteriorate with women and small children making up the majority of most recent casualties, a representative from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in the country said today.
Source: Reuters Africa
Child marriage should be seen as a form of modern slavery and is tantamount to sanctioning child rape, the African Union's goodwill ambassador said at a conference on ending the practice.
Source: Zambia Daily Mail
Kitwe GOVERNMENT has released K220,000 for the empowerment of 20 women's clubs in Kitwe, district commissioner Chanda Kabwe has said.
Source: The Guardian
The Nigerian senate recently passed its violence against persons prohibition (VAPP) bill, which seeks to eliminate female genital mutilation (FGM) as well as all other forms of gender-based violence.
Source: BBC
Egyptian security forces are using sexual violence against detainees on a massive scale, according to the International Federation for Human Rights.
A report by the organisation suggests men, women and children are being abused "to eliminate public protest".
Many are subjected to virginity tests, rape and gang rape after arrest.
Egypt's Interior Ministry said it would not comment until it had studied the report.
The study notes a surge in sexual violence after the Egyptian military takeover in July 2013.
The perpetrators are rarely held to account and the impunity points to a "cynical political strategy aimed at silencing all opposition".
Police, intelligence officers and members of the military are guilty of targeting male and female detainees, according to the report.
Human rights groups have accused the authorities of failing to address the issue (file photo)
Student's ordeal
I saw an officer who was grabbing a young woman by the breasts and I said to him: "If you want to arrest her, then arrest her, but you have no right to touch her breasts."
He grabbed me exactly as he had her, before calling two other police officers to come and hold me. They beat me, insulted me.
In the van they insulted me and beat me so much that I could no longer stand up. Two soldiers started to sexually assault me.
The officer from the start got into the van and said to me: "Come here I'm going to show you if I'm a man." He sexually assaulted me, the soldiers laughed, and then he raped me completely. I was paralysed, I started to vomit blood.
My life is ruined. I'm afraid of my son, my husband and even my father.
The authors said they did not have evidence that commanders were giving the orders, but the scale of the violence - and the impunity - suggested there was a political strategy.
They claim that victims who file complaints are systematically obstructed by the justice system, and face threats and reprisals by police officers and prison guards.
Sexual violence has long been a problem within the general population in Egypt, with assaults dramatically increasing in the years since Hosni Mubarak was removed from power.
Last year, President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi ordered police to launch a crackdown amid growing public anger.
He said sexual assaults, were "an unacceptable form of conduct" and called for citizens to "reinstate moral values in society".
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
The Nezeledoun resource centre in Cassou village is a hive of activity, unlike the thirsty farms nearby, as women cultivate tree seedlings and vegetables here, thanks to a borehole that provides much-needed water.
Source: The Ethiopian Herald
In conjunction with the ongoing Fifth General Election, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) Women League based in Addis held at the Addis Ababa Stadium yesterday a rally in support of the advancements made by women in the social, political and economic spheres.
Source: Diplomat
When Fadumo Dayib announced her bid to run for President of Somalia on national TV last year, people thought she was crazy. Somalia's violent history and the life-threatening conditions that the country's politicians and activists face on a daily basis makes Dayib's choice to run for office— especially as a woman in a patriarchal culture—a brave one. "People just can't understand why I would do such a thing," Dayib says.
Source: The Chronicle
Information reaching The Chronicle the indicates that 7,256 girls, representing 33.69 percent from six districts in the Eastern Region, dropped out of basic school between the 2010 and 2012 academic years.
Source: IPS
When some 40,000 delegates, including dozens of heads of state, descend on Paris for the United Nations Climate Change Conference later this year, a group of African women mayors plan to be there and make their voices heard on a range of issues, including electrification.
Source: The News
The Women NGOs Secretariat of Liberia (WONGOSOL) has expressed joy over the World Health Organization's (WHO) declaration of Liberia as an Ebola free nation.