A series of gold-framed pictures cover the wall from left to right inside the working space of Senegalese human rights activist Bineta Diop. Nelson Mandela, Paul Kagame, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Yasser Arafat -- they're all here. This is Diop's wall of memories, reminders of meetings and accomplishments over the years.
Meriam Yehya Ibrahim faces a death sentence in Sudan for apostasy after a court ruled she converted from Islam.
Source: Awareness Times Women across the country, who assembled on 13th and 14th May 2014 in Magburaka Town to draft the Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment Bill and domestication of CEDAW in a consultative forum, have expressed their disappointment over what they described as bad customs and tradition which do not allow them in certain parts of the country to sit on the Paramount ChieftaincyThrone.
Source: Institute For Security Studies
ANALYSIS
Over three million people have tweeted about it by now. The #BringBackOurGirls Twitter campaign has seen a phenomenal uptake, with heads of state (and their wives), movie stars and women's rights leaders all joining in to highlight the plight of the more than 200 school girls kidnapped by the militant Islamist group, Boko Haram, in north-eastern Nigeria last month.
Source: IRIN
Juba — Sexual and gender-based violence might not be a new phenomenon in South Sudan, but the current crisis and the near absence of protection for civilians has exacerbated it, analysts say.
Source: DW
An HIV prevention bill passed by Ugandan lawmakers has caused an outrcy amongst those fighting for the rights of people living with HIV. The bill calls for mandatory HIV tests for pregnant women.
Source: SAnews.gov.za
Calls for the release of the more than 200 Nigerian school girls, recently kidnapped by the Islamic militant group Boko-Haram, are intensifying in South Africa. Women, Children and People with Disabilities Minister Lulu Xingwana on Wednesday again called for their safe return.
Source: The Star
Anti-FGM Board Chairperson Linah Kilimo with Christine Nanjals who is Director of the Unit of Prosecutors at the DPPs handling the FGM cases.
Source: Vanguard
A woman, Hajiya Maimuna Danja, Wednesday died on her way to Katsina to pray for the release of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls.
Source: UN News Centre
The United Nations expert committee tasked with monitoring discrimination against women today added its voice to the chorus of condemnation of the abduction of over 200 girls from their school in north-eastern Nigeria and called for their immediate release.
Source: World Bank
PRESS RELEASE
Less educated girls far more likely to suffer violence, child marriage
Girls with little or no education are far more likely to be married as children, suffer domestic violence, live in poverty, and lack a say over household spending or their own health care than better-educated peers, which harms them, their children, and communities, a new report by the World Bank Group finds.
WHEN terrorists in Nigeria organized a secret attack last month, they didn’t target an army barracks, a police department or a drone base. No, Boko Haram militants attacked what is even scarier to a fanatic: a girls’ school.
Leaders have opposed attempts to amend the law to reduce the number of women representation in Parliament and in county assemblies. Senate Speaker Ekwe Ethuro admitted that the country was agonising over how to achieve the two-third gender rule by 2015, but said women’s rights must be protected.
WOMEN from South Africa's ruling African National Congress outlined actions to mobilise civil society and government organisations to explore ways of ensuring the release of the schoolgirls Boko Haram members kidnapped in Chibok, Borno State recently.
Source: The Point
The first Gambian female governor in the history of the country, Siffai Hydara, has reaffirmed her allegiance and loyalty to the APRC party under the leadership of President Yahya Jammeh, adding that she would do her utmost best to live up to expectations in raising the flag of the Gambian women.
Source: South Sudan News Agency
PRESS RELEASE
The South Sudan Women Cry for Peace Group have been following the unfortunate events that unfolded on the 15th of December 2013 with sadness. To that effect the group was established in January 2014 and thereafter released two statements dated the 7th of January and the 21st of February 2014 respectively.
Source: Angola Press
Ngonguembo — At least 947 women from Ngonguembo municipality, northern Cuanza Norte province, were immunised against tetanus in April, under the vaccination campaign promoted by the local health authorities, aiming to prevent the referred disease in ladies in fertile age.
Source: Daily Trust
Lagos — All Progressive Congress (APC) women leader, Barrister Sharon Ikeazor, has urged the first lady, Patience Jonathan, to visit the women whose children were abducted in Chibok, Borno State.
Source: Leadership
The kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls in northern Nigeria by Boko Haram insurgents is more than just an act of terrorism against the federal government; it is a direct attack on the right of women to an education, said Donald Kaberuka, President, African Development Bank (AfDB), Tunis. The kidnapping also puts the very future of the country in danger as school learners represent that future, he added.