Source: MWC News
Cameroon is suffering under an "anti-homosexuals apartheid," a lawyer who has spent a decade defending gays and lesbians in the West African nation, where same-sex relations are illegal, has said.
"When a country uses weapons, the police and all available legal and prison means against a section of its population, while it has a commitment to protect," it is apartheid, Alice Nkom told the AFP news agency in an interview.
Source: The Independent
In a dusty field, a mile outside the town of Bobo-Dioulasso in western Burkina Faso, a fully equipped new hospital stands idle. Astonishingly, the Minister of Health for this, one of the poorest countries in the world, refuses to allow it to open. The sign outside the hospital advertises that it was built by a charity called Clitoraid and the hospital is known as The Pleasure Hospital. And therein lies the problem.
The initiative for Clitoraid and the Pleasure Hospital comes from the Raëlians, a bizarre religious sect who believe in UFOs, and that the purpose of life is the pursuit of pleasure. The sect claims it launched Clitoraid after learning that more than 100 million women in Africa had been genitally mutilated – a process that denies women sexual pleasure and gives them excruciating pain during intercourse and in childbirth. They raised £250,000 to build the hospital, mainly from donors in California and Canada.
Source: Oman Daily Observer
A new initiative has India partnering with African countries to empower African women by developing skills that already exist within them.
Displayed in the middle of corporates and surrounded by technology companies, engineering as well as IT solution providers at the exhibition being held as part of the 10th CII-EXIM Bank Conclave on India-Africa Project Partnership here, is the India-Africa Craft Design Initiative that aims at supporting women in Africa.
Source: Tanzania Daily News
Do women believe that men are justified when they beat them for whatever mistake they made? In a reaction to this question, the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) which compiles data from around the world suggests that there is a percentage of women in Tanzania who take positively this punishment from their husbands.
The DHS data which can be accessed on www.statcompiler.com. made a survey on issues like when the wife burns the food in the kitchen , argues with the husband, neglects the children, or refuses to have sex with him or if she attempts to question him for going out without telling her.
Source: Radio VOP
Mention African women and security, and thoughts likely dash to the many wars, past and present, across the continent. This is because of mass crimes committed specifically against women, not least the waves of sexual violence in eastern Congo, Darfur, Kenya during 2007’s post-election violence, Liberia, Sierra Leone and now Central African Republic.
Source: Tanzania Daily News
Airtel Tanzania has handed over 5m/- to the organisers of the Mwanamakuka award - the unit women friends, during the Award event held in Dar es Salaam this weekend.
Mwanamakuka Award 2014 involved 10 women who participated and won in year 2012 and 2013 respectively, the winners were required to write short success story and show case their business achievements were the overall winner to be rewarded cash prize for her business, during the event Leila Mwambungu was announced the winner of Mwanamakuka Award 2014.
Source: Vanguard
The Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC Aruma Oteh has identified disparities in financial access, asset/land ownership, income, access to education and poor representation in decision making positions as the greatest threat to women entrepreneurs.
Source: Tanzania Daily News
A grouping of civil organizations, Women Coalition on Constitution Issues, has praised the recent move by the Constituent Assembly to vote a man and a woman as chairperson and deputy, respectively.
In a statement released in Dar es Salaam, the deputy Executive director of the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP), Ms Lilian Liundi, said the Constituent Assembly had so far been exemplary in illustrating gender balance in running business in the House.
Source: Diverse Education
Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist Leymah Gbowee, scholars and international social justice advocates discussed women's rights movements in Africa during a symposium this week at Barnard College in New York.
Source: Thisdaylive
The Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Ms Aruma Oteh, has called on Nigerian women to take advantage of the growth in all sectors of the nation's economy to enhance their well being and contribute more to the society.
Source: Times of Zambia
THE steps taken by President Michael Sata on International Women's Day are a strong foundation through which Zambian women can uplift themselves as they focus on the next 50 years.
Admittedly, the measures taken by the Republican President are a stepping stone for women in releasing their potential.
Source: Ground up
During the Khayelitsha Commission, community witnesses, academics and police officers related stories of appalling violence, particularly sexual violence. The picture painted is in danger of creating the impression that Khayelitsha is bad, that something is wrong with the community, that it is unsalvageable.
Source: Times of Zambia
WORLD Vision Zambia says it is spending more than K200,000 on its campaign against child marriages in Mumbwa District of Central Province.
Source: Angop
The contribution of women to the cultural, socio-political and economic fields was recognised Thursday in the northern Uige province by the provincial vice governor Maria Fernandes da Silva e Silva.
Source: The Daily Observer
The West Africa Network for Peace Building, WANEP-Gambia chapter has revealed that women are still victims of Gender Based Violence, manifested in the forms of rape, human trafficking, domestic violence and forced marriage amongst others which results to psychological and emotional trauma and abuse of their fundamental human rights.
Source: Gender Links
Speaking at CSW58, Dr. Nicholas Alipui, Director of Programmes of UNICEF explains how child marriage contributes to gender inequality and puts girls' health and lives at risk.
Source: Heritage
The Minister of Gender and Development, Julia Duncan Cassell, has said global efforts to ensure universal access to reproductive health by 2015 are facing challenges worldwide.
Source: Gender Links
New York — On the third day of CSW58 yesterday, members of the Southern Africa Protocol Alliance, the Malawi delegation and Gender Links hosted the side event Using the SADC Gender Protocol to push for a strong post 2015 Agenda.
Source: Gender Links
As negotiations for the agreed conclusions gain momentum at the ongoing 58th session of the Commission for the Status of Women (CSW58), it has emerged that women's rights are under threat.
Source: IIP Digital
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This story was originally published on the Millennium Challenge Corporation's website March 12 as "From all Angles: BRIGHT Schools Improve Girls' Education."