President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has received the African-American Institute's (AAI) African National Achievement Award for Literacy to Support Life Skills. The Liberian leader was one of five honorees to have received an AAI award at a dinner in their honor at New York City's Grand Hyatt Hotel on September 26th.
Source: The Star
THE stalemate surrounding the gender parity rule will only be solved by the Supreme Court, the chairman of the Commission on Administrative Justice Otiende Amollo said at the weekend.
The presidential aspirants of three political parties in the country have pledged their commitment to the cause of women and to involve them in decision-making as being championed by women rights activists if elected into power. The parties are the Progressive People's Party (PPP), People's National Convention (PNC) and Convention People's Party (CPP).
Source: The Star
Centre for Multiparty Democracy programmes officer in charge of gender Sarah Muhoya has told Kilifi women to not to shy away from aiming for higher elective political seats.
Source: RNW
The 'abortion boat' is setting sail for the Arab world for the first time. Dutch organisation Women on Waves is launching a campaign in Morocco this week, in cooperation with local youth group M.A.L.I.
Source: Indepth Africa
Women in the Extreme North Region of Cameroon face a brutal nexus of violence and hunger. As long as women remain under the domination of forms of violence – including the denial of their right to food – they will be non-citizens, says Aîssa Ngatansou Doumara.
Almost every woman has a story to tell of violence and abuse, often at the hands of people that purport to love her.
The Somaliland Non State Actors Forum (SONSAF) fully supports the Somaliland women and Minority groups’ rights to participate in the national democratisation process, multi-party elections and the national decision-making structures. SONSAF proposes and underlines the need for the involvement of all the different national institutions, particularly, the law making bodies and the international community and urges their pro-active support in achieving this goal.
Source: BIZ Community
Funded by FNB and under the banner of Sonke Gender Justice Network, the One Man Can (OMC) Campaign was launched in 2006 and developed to support men and boys to take action to end domestic and sexual violence, prevent HIV and to promote healthy relationships that men and women can enjoy.
Source: The Guardian
Nyamizi, a 73-year-old widow from Sukumaland, Tanzania, was returning home from work one night when she was attacked by a man with a machete. He chopped off her hand and slashed her head, knocking her unconscious.
Source: Moroccan American Center for Policy
The 6th Annual Women's International Film Festival came to a close on September 22nd in the northern Moroccan city of Salé. Twelve films from Europe, America, Asia and Africa competed in the six-day event, organised by Association Bouregreg.
Source: Leadership
Never before have so many of our female pilgrims been detained in, and later deported from, Saudi Arabia because they did not have "mahram". A woman can be allowed to perform the Hajj under the care of a constituted authority, not necessarily a mahram.
Source: Liberia Government
"Women continue to play a major role in the efforts for peace. Women continue to be those peace builders; continue to promote the environment that enables all citizens to search for peace, maintain peace and use the security that peace brings to be able to join in the processes of development that will touch the lives and change the condition of humankind," President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has said.
One after the other, women visiting their sick friend Aïssatou Baïlo Diallo, a 42-year-old teacher in Guinea’s capital Conakry, are overcome with emotion and leave her bedside crying. Diallo has been in and out of hospitals since she was raped in the 28 September 2009 stadium attack, and in recent weeks her health has deteriorated rapidly. Three years after the stadium massacre, the pain is fresh.
There is a particularly vulnerable group – the women and children of our world for whom ‘external shocks’, cause real and serious dislocation in their daily lives.
THERE was a time in Africa, years ago, when men controlled all the wealth. The male folk were the exclusive owners of land and property, and the women simply had to be content with the crumbs the men threw their way.
Samira Ibrahim, Rasha Abdel-Rahma, and Jihane Mahmoud, three victims of the so-called "virginity tests" conducted by the Egyptian military on a group of female protesters last spring, are taking their case to the African Commission.
The United States Government, along with other G8 members, hosted a side event today at the United Nations General Assembly in New York to announce that Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire and Mozambique have joined the G8’s New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition.
September marks the annual Heritage Month in South Africa. Heritage month celebrates and affirm individual and collective cultural, traditional and ethnic diversities. It also includes traditional practices and values that have been passed on from generation to generation since time immemorial. This heritage month, as politicians stall the withdrawal of the controversial Traditional Courts Bill, it's important to consider what the legislation could mean for the average South African woman.
Investing in women farmers could reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 100 to 150 million people. That was one of many insights which emerged at the launch of a joint project to empower farmers in seven different countries on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.