Source: Vanguard
At first, when relatives of a 25-year-old student of Enugu State College of Education, Chika Egbo, learnt of her romance with a man from the south western part of the country who had offered to marry her, they were surprised giving the fact that their daughter and sister does not live or school in that part of the country.
Source: Sudan Tribune
South Sudan's Deputy Minister of Gender, Child and Social Welfare said Sunday that violence against women is one of the major contributing obstacles to the country's development
Violence against women is considered as one of the obstacles to the advancement of women and it is an abuse of human rights, says the resident coordinator of the United Nations System in The Gambia, Madam Chinwe M. Dike.
A draft constitution approved by Egypt’s Constituent Assembly falls well short of protecting human rights and, in particular, ignores the rights of women, restricts freedom of expression in the name of protecting religion, and allows for the military trial of civilians, Amnesty International said.
A new initiative in which qualified village nurses and clinical officers provide free medical examinations and counselling services to survivors of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in Uganda could help to speed up the prosecution of such cases, say officials.
"Rova . . . rova . . . rova! Ukasandirova urimbwa," a newly-married woman shouted while in the nude in the dead of the night. All this while her equally young husband, a known weightlifter, who was half-dressed, was pumping fists into her bulge.
In 2010 the African Union launched a decade-long initiative to promote women's empowerment and put female rights at the heart of development in the billion-strong continent.
New HIV infections in children are down, but reaching the goal of an AIDS-free generation requires treating more pregnant women and children living with HIV, according to the United Nations Children's Fund(UNICEF).
“You need to be circumcised to be married, so that if you get pregnant you don’t bring shame to your family,” explains Nengai, a proud, 26-year-old school teacher. In Gelai, the rural village where she grew up, all of the girls she knew were circumcised, usually after they completed primary school.Her own mother came from a poor family and was married at just 9 years of age to a man with four wives — the man who would become Nengai’s father.
United Nations Member States have approved the first-ever draft resolution aimed at ending the harmful practice of female genital mutilation, in a move hailed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as a major step forward in protecting millions of women and girls.
Source: UN News Centre
Countries have a responsibility to implement national policies to end violence against women, United Nations officials stressed today, adding that urgent action is needed to stop one of the most pervasive human rights violations worldwide.
African women lawmakers on Wednesday robustly pushed for strategies that will see more women supported to assume leadership roles on the continent.
Source: UNESCO
Many people all over the world use the occasion of World AIDS Day (WAD), 1 December, to raise awareness about the disease and reflect on progress in the response. The theme for this WAD, and all others until 2015, is Getting to Zero: zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths.
UNESCO Director-General, Irina Bokova, addressed the Conference entitled “Trafficking of women: exploring effective policies and mechanisms to prevent it through education”, held on 26 November at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. This event, organized on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, celebrated every year on 25 November, seeks to raise awareness and build stronger international and national action against the
Against the backdrop of an upcoming U.N. Security Council (UNSC) meeting on women, peace and security, a coalition of some 63 international women’s groups and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) has decried the absence of women during peace negotiations in post-conflict situations.
Sustained by institutional, cultural and structural discrimination, violence against women continues, with Africa particularly badly affected.
When the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) adopted a landmark resolution numbered 1325 back in 2000, it was supposed to integrate gender into its core mandate: the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security.
In Uganda, only 38% of midwives are fully qualified, leaving the majority ill-equipped to deal with complicated births. But a pioneering project is using online study to fill the training gap.
Landmark resolution calls on member states to condemn FGM and pass laws to protect girls and women 'from this violence'.
As the UN marks International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, statistics show that 70 per cent of women and girls will experience some form of violence during their lifetime. Pictured, in Cambodia, an acid attack survivor who was assaulted by her brother-in-law when she threatened to report him for selling his two year-old daughter to traffickers.