Source: The Namibian
SOME of their names have been forgotten, others didn't live long enough to be named at all and still others cower behind closed doors fearing a society in which gender-based violence is the shame of the victim rather than that of the villain.
As the 122 people raped in the first four months of this year began to fade into the nameless and faceless obscurity of mounting statistics, local activists rallied in mini-skirts to call out the Police Inspector General for ostensibly mitigating rape in favour of the perpetrator and, a mere month ago, discussed the immense task of ending gender-based violence on a mountain top.
Source: Daily Trust
Women play crucial roles in developing the society. They have the responsibility of maintaining a healthy society starting from their roles in nurturing the family unit to their contribution in the various sectors of the country.
The first women panel in the country with the theme, 'Women and social responsibility', organised by Ufuk Dialogue Foundation in collaboration with Daily Trust Newspaper was held in Abuja last Saturday.
Source: Leadership
Aisha Jibrin Dukku was a minister between 2007 and 2010 during the administration of late President Umar Musa Yar'Adua. She was Minister of State for Education and belonged to the inner caucus of the president's family. She became one of the first truly conservative Fulani families to attain this position on her on merit.
Source: Leadership
Women's handbags are contaminated with more bacteria than the average toilet, a new study has revealed.
Tests showed that one in five handbag handles is home to sufficient bacteria to pose a risk to human health.
The research also revealed that the dirtiest item in the average handbag is hand cream – bottles of hand cream were found to carry more bacteria than the average toilet seat.
Source: Leadership
President Goodluck Jonathan's administration is now defined by several influential women around him. These women are not only vocal but are assigned responsibilities and positions of authority that are difficult to overlook.
They not only formulate policies; they insist on pushing them through. A sampler: When the president removed subsidy on petrol on January 1, 2012, most Nigerians blamed it on Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala , the minister of finance and coordinating minister for the economy.
Source: Daily Trust
Over $10,000 worth of antenatal products were on Tuesday given to more than 500 expectant mothers at the Nyanya Genaral Hospital by Zumunta Association, Washington DC chapter in conjunction with Milestone Medical Outreach also based in the USA.
Source: Times of Zambia
ROTARY Club International (RCI) has pledged to work closely with the Zambian Government in reducing maternal and child mortality rate in the country.
Source: Magharebia
Nineteen-year-old Tunisian feminist "Amina" was arrested in Kairouan on Sunday (May 19th).
Tunisia's prosecutor ordered the arrest of the Femen activist after she tried to take off her clothes opposite Uqba Ibn Nafi Mosque. She was also reportedly seen painting the word "Femen" on a wall near the mosque.
Source: Vanguard
THE joy of every woman is to deliver her baby normally. This is in spite of the many travails associated with pregnancy and delivery. Before now, the most available or preferred option for most women is natural birth.
Source: The Observer (Kampala)
Makerere University Walter Reed Project (MUWRP) is this July launching another third Phase I trial to develop an HIV vaccine since 1999 when the first trial was launched.
Source: The New Vision
Rubaga Girls Primary School pupils had assembled to listen to an HIV awareness talk.The school always created an opportunity for the pupils and their parents to learn about different issues, including HIV.
Source: Daily Trust
At least three in 10 young girls have sex for the first time ever through rape, says a survey.
The survey by Positive Action for Treatment Access (PATA) investigated reasons for high HIV prevalence and lower age of first sex among adolescents aged between 10 and 19 and found "forced sex was the third main reason for sexual debut" after love and peer pressure.
Source: New Times
Business Times continues to profile successful business women, who will share their success tips and experiences of how they made it in the cutthroat and male-dominated business world. They reveal how they started out, what inspired them and how they have managed to make their business dreams come true. This week, Peterson Tumwebaze caught up with Meledah Twahirwa, a lawyer turned business woman.
Source: Cameroon Tribune
First Lady, Mrs Chantal Biya joined scores of women at the 20th May Boulevard to mark Unity Day Celebration.
Women from all walks of life, particularly those in the Defence Forces, yesterday May 20 displayed their strength in meeting challenges for an emerging Cameroon during a mast past at the 20th May Boulevard which saw them marched with guns as if to say "what a man can do; a woman can do and even better".
Source: Vanguard
AHEAD of the Women Deliver 2013 International Conference which opens in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia May 27, the health, wellbeing and survival of girls and women the world over, have been identified as critical factors for global development. In a call for improved and sustained investment in the health and wellbeing of girls and women all over the world, Jill Sheffield, President/Founder of Women Deliver - a global advocacy organisation working to generate political commitment and financial investment for fulfilling Millennium Development Goal 5 - asserts that investing in girls and women pays.
Source: Rwanda Focus
Way back in my primary school we were taught that father is the head of the family. Our teachers were right because those were the days no doubt the father was the head of his family. He, after all, brought home the bread and dictated what the family would eat. But with the emergence of the so-called empowered woman, however, those days are long gone.
Source: UN News Service
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today commended the Government and people of Mozambique for steady progress in political development, but urged greater efforts to overcome human rights challenges, including discrimination and violence against women, through education and awareness-raising.
At a visit to the Samsão Muthemba secondary school, Mr. Ban highlighted his UNiTE to end violence against women and girls campaign to raise public knowledge and increase political will and resources for preventing and ending all forms of gender-based violence.
Source: Times of Zambia
DESPITE the positive macro-economic performance Zambia has achieved in the recent years, financial inclusion continues to be a challenge as a number of Zambians remain without access to financial services.
Further, the entry of new commercial banks and the expansion of products and services by market players have not helped in changing the situation as some parts of Zambia have no banking and financial services.
Source: FrontPageAfrica
Victoria Kanu, 30, sits in front of her sewing machine turning the wheels as she puts the finishing lines to the dress of a waiting customer. She looks happy and alive as she tells FrontPageAfrica her ordeal that led her to contracting Fistula.
Victoria lived happily with her boyfriend in Zleh Town, Grand Gedeh County with their two year old baby, but suddenly one day in November 2010 they got into a fight and something terrible happened that would ruin her dignity as a human being and a woman and isolate her from her community.
Source: The Herald
A KADOMA man endured a hellish two days at the hands of four women who reportedly kidnapped him at gunpoint and locked him up in a room where they would take turns to be intimate with him before giving him trinkets and later dumping him on the side of the road, police have said. Before going on gruelling sessions of sexually satisfying the women, they would give him a meal of sadza and chicken which police now suspect to have been laced with an aphrodisiac.