The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) presented a new Continent-Wide Initiative on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment at the Seventh Joint Annual Meeting of the Economic Commission for Africa Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development and the African Union Conference of Ministers of Economy and Finance in Abuja, Nigeria, from 25 to 30 March 2014.
A traditional two-year mourning period for widows during which women are expected to be confined and not work, is meeting growing resistance in Swaziland.
Source: Tanzania Daily News
THE government has achieved tremendous success in enforcing various international and regional conventions in the fight against the discrimination of women and children.
Progress on gender equality is being eroded by new laws that violate the constitution and indoctrinate discrimination. News of the death of a 13-year-old girl from Kajiado in southern Kenyaafter she underwent female genital mutilation (FGM) brings to mind another 12-year-old Maasai girl, Sasiano Nchoe, who died in very similar circumstances after undergoing FGM in 2008.
Source: Tanzania Daily News
LACK of adequate family planning education is the reason for insufficient resources among many families, resulting in unwanted pregnancies and maternal death.
Source: Gender Links
Economic dependency has been cited as one of the causes for gender based violence (GBV), whose many victims and/ or survivors are women. It is often cited as the reason that forces women to stay in abusive relationships or marriages because they feel they cannot survive without an income from their spouses or male relations.
Source: Capital FM
A couple has been remanded in custody for seven days after a 13-year-old girl under their care died after undergoing Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
Source: Gender Links
Nora Schimming-Chase, former Namibian Ambassador and Member of Parliament, has expressed her disappointment with the current situation surrounding the lack of positive and progressive action towards a 50-50 initiative on gender representation in Parliament. She made the remarks at the official opening of the Namibia SADC Protocol@Work Summit held on 14 April.
Source: Vanguard
The Foundation for the Victims of Child Abuse, (VCAF), has warned that the abduction of school girls could discourage parents from embracing girl-child education.
Source: Voice of America
More than five days after the abduction of more than 100 teenage girls in Northeastern Nigeria, 85 girls remain missing, believed to be deep within a dangerous forest.
Source: Voice of America
Women rights campaigners have intensified their 50/50 drive to have equal representation in the May 20 elections. Malawi ranks as one of the countries with low female representation not only in southern Africa, but globally. At the moment, only 22 percent of 193 parliamentary seats are held by women.
Source: Global Post
Sexual violence against women has been rife since the 2011 uprising in Egypt, where hundreds of female protesters have been the target of attack with apparent impunity, rights groups said Wednesday.
Source: Al Jazeera
True gender equality in Africa might seem a remote dream. But in Mozambique, small steps are being made in the fight for women’s rights thanks to the passion and determination of one 18-year-old girl, Suzete Sangula.
Source: Women For Women International
Yar's Story
20-year old Hellena Yar Maguen has been with Women for Women International- South Sudan since 2007. She is a successful participant on the CIFI farm, farming six plots of land and earning enough to support herself and her family, all despite paralysis in her right hand. She is one of WfWI-Sudan's best success stories, and living proof that one's abilities are not only skin-deep.
Source: New Era
Tnamrock is calling on everyone to attend its national project that aims at uniting Namibian men to stand together and protect their women and children against all kinds of violence on April 26 at the Zoo Park.
Source: Malawi New Agency
In an attempt to reduce school drop-out among girls in Nsanje, Action Aid International Malawi has embarked on a two-week long initiative where they are engaging girls in the district’s rural schools in motivation talks.
Source: Front Page Africa
The Angie Brooks International Center (ABIC) says it will shortly dedicate the Chief Suakoko Center in Bong County.
Source: Gender Links
"The media must be greatly engaged and involved in promotion of gender equality," said Mulupe Majara, Informative Newspaper journalist, who was the first winner in the media category of the ‘50/50 by 2015 and a strong post 2015 agenda!' summit in Maseru, Lesotho.
Suspected Islamist insurgents have abducted more than 100 female students in a night raid on a government secondary school in Nigeria's northeast Borno state, a teacher said on Tuesday.
Source: The Zimbabwean
Zimbabwean women will not let men wrestle away what they gained in the constitution and decide their fate, says the information campaigns and advocacy officer for the Women in Politics Support Unit, Tsitsi Mhlanga.