"BE aggressive! use your teeth to bite any part of the body of a rapist, for evidence," these were unsympathetic words from a community leader to women in efforts to counter gender violence in his area.
Source: UN News
A United Nations envoy today expressed dismay at the sexual attacks on women protesters in Egypt, as well as the messages from prominent religious and political leaders that women are to blame.
Source: UN News
A United Nations envoy has arrived in Somalia on an information-gathering visit to raise awareness and discuss ways of addressing sexual violence in the Horn of Africa country.
Source: CIO
Google has created a special Doodle on its homepages across Sub Sahara Africa to mark the 73rd birthday of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Wangari Maathai. In the doodle, a figure of a smiling Wangari replaces the second "o" in the Google logo.
Source: The Zimbabwean
Fatima Shabodien, Country Director for ActionAid South Africa, believes access and control of land is the best way of empowering ordinary African women. She spoke to The Zimbabwean’s Tarisai Jangara about how BRICS, a group of emerging economic powers, would assist African women.
Source: The Star
A number of doctors have raised the alarm about what they see a dangerous move by their bosses at the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation headquarters in Afya House. They are concerned that a decision to replace tried and tested HIV testing kits with new ones that have not yet met the approval of the World Health Organization may be motivated by financial considerations, rather than the health and well-being of Kenyans.
Source: The Star
THE Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation has announced the adoption of new HIV testing test kits that have not been approved by the World Health Organisation.
The Director of Public Health and Sanitation Dr SK Sharif has notified health officers that the new kits already being supplied will replace the old ones.
Source: The Inquirer (Monrovia)
Liberia has again made a giant stride in addressing the issue of newborn infection and prematurity which contribute significantly to newborn deaths in the country with the approval of 7.1% Clorhexidine Digluconate (4% free chiorhexidine) for cord care and the National Guideline on Kangaroo Mother Care for the care of preterm babies.
Source: The Namibian
THE education directorate in the Kunene Region has completed an investigation into a case where a 15-year-old schoolgirl was allegedly impregnated by a teacher.
"The investigation is completed and the teacher will appear at a hearing to give him an opportunity to give his side of the story," Simon Tsuseb,
Source: Christian Aid (London)
Christian Aid Week (12-18 May 2013 www.caweek.org), Britain's longest running door-to-door fundraising week, will this year be urging the British public to 'bite back at hunger' and ask why, in a world where there is enough food for everyone, 1 in 8 people go to bed hungry every night?
Source: The Guardian
When she was 12, Kakenya Ntaiya made a deal with her father: she would undergo the Maasai rite of passage of female circumcision if he would let her go to high school. If she had run away Ntaiya's father would have been shamed in his village, so he agreed to her terms and the ceremony went ahead.
Source: Huffington
As a young African woman, I sit at my desk in Johannesburg trying to make sense of the recent international shockwave surrounding rape, and what it means for lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in South Africa.
Source: The Daily News
The Cairo Centre for Development and Human Rights on Monday expressed deep concern and dismay at continuous efforts to subvert women’s rights and gender equality in Egypt.
Source: The Foundry
Another U.N. Meeting Equates “Women’s Rights” with Abortion, Sexual RightsOnce again, this year’s U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW)—ostensibly themed on the prevention of violence against women and girls—actually focused on expanding so-called sexual and reproductive rights for women and girls, including abortion.
The United Nations apparently lacked the online resources of the fast-growing digital age when it created its highly-touted Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2001, with a targeted deadline of 2015.
Source: Premium Times
The University of Nigeria Nsukka, UNN, has recorded more than 50 per cent increase in the number of female students studying sciences since 2009, the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Bartho Okolo, said. Mr. Okolo made the statement in an in Paris when two Nigerian female scientists received the 2013 UNESCO-L'Oreal awards.
Source: United States Department of State
A grant from the U.S. African Development Foundation enabled the COOPAVI women's fishing cooperative in western Rwanda to receive training, buy motorboats and fishing supplies, and eventually increase its income 300 percent.
Source: IPS
As countries in the Middle East and North Africa adjust to profound political changes and economic difficulties, development experts on the region have increasingly turned their attention to the social and economic potential of incorporating more female workers into the labour market.
Source: Sudan Tribune
Sudan is the seventh worst country in the world for sexual violence in conflict according to a report by global risk analysis firm, Maplecroft which rated neighbouring South Sudan as an "extreme high risk" country.
The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights has handed down a decision in a case concerning violence against four women journalists during a protest. The Commission found that the state of Egypt failed to protect four women journalists from violence and in doing so violated their human rights including rights to equality and non-discrimination, right to dignity and protection from cruel inhuman and degrading treatment and their right to express