Source: Human Rights Watch
South Africa’s new campaign to reduce maternal mortality is an important step to address a serious problem, but accountability will be the key to making it work, Human Rights Watch said today. The campaign is aimed at reducing the number of women who die needlessly from preventable and treatable causes linked to pregnancy and childbirth.
It's called "the bearing of the body" in Burkina Faso: when a death is deemed suspicious and a group of men carry the corpse through the community, believing the deceased will guide them towards the person responsible for the death. The accused - almost always women - are then chased out of their homes.
Source: New Era
Next Saturday at least 1000 men will join hands in a planned march in support of men for healthy relationships and against an upsurge in gender-based violence (GBV).
Source: Sowetan
WITH an assortment of unsavoury news on the apparent low regard for the dignity of women and girl children, the world must be wondering what sort of nation South Africa is becoming.
Niger is the worst country on earth in which to be a mother, according to a report by Save the Children. The charity's annual Mothers' Index uses statistics covering female and child health and nutrition, as well as prospects for women's education, economic prosperity and political participation in its assessment of 165 countries.
Source: Global Press Institute
Nancy Acieng stands outside the door of Pride Microfinance Limited, a bank in Kampala, Uganda's capital. A fairly educated woman, she works hard to earn money selling fresh food and fruit from a roadside stall.
Source: Cameroon Tribune
Women in Cameroon, according to the Women's Economic Opportunity Index (WEOI) 2012, can still not fully exercise their rights businesses and some employments. The index places Cameroon at the 114th position on the overall rankings table of 128 countries the world over, featuring 30 in a list of 39 Lower Middle Income countries and at the 14th position out of 21 Sub-Saharan Africa countries.
Source: The Namibian
WITH the launch of the Fertility Clinic in Windhoek last month, In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) is at long last becoming a reality in Namibia.
Source: Women E-News
After stirring an outcry for her article in Foreign Policy magazine, Egyptian-American columnist Mona Eltahawy on Tuesday night offered a vigorous defense of her views that the real Middle East revolution is yet to come, between men and women.
Source: Women E-News
Clinicians sent to a Ghanaian ethnic group chide mothers for obeying kinship health rules, writes Aaron R. Denham in this excerpted essay from "Risk, Reproduction, and Narratives of Experience." The result is double-whammy pressure.
Source: Alert Net
One month after arriving at WFP, Executive Director Ertharin Cousin was out in the field in the central African nation of Niger, one of the countries most affected by the drought in the Sahel region. After the first day of her field trip, in which she traveled with UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, the WFP chief sent back this account of her experiences.
Source: IRIN News
ANTSOHIHY, 4 May 2012 (IRIN) - Daughters as young as 12 in the villages surrounding Antsohihy, the capital of Sofia Region, in Madagascar's remote, traditional north, often suffer the harmful consequences of falling pregnant and giving birth too young when parents accept zebus (cattle) or cash as a dowry.
Source: IPS News
OUAGADOUGOU, May 7, 2012 (IPS) - It's called "the bearing of the body" in Burkina Faso: when a death is deemed suspicious and a group of men carry the corpse through the community, believing the deceased will guide them towards the person responsible for the death. The accused - almost always women – are then chased out of their homes.
Source: Euronews
Radio has often been used as a weapon of war in Africa. Caddy Adzuba is a journalist for Radio Okapi in the Democratic Republic of Congo. At all costs, she uses her voice to call for peace.
Source: RNW
The plight of child soldiers in Africa has grabbed the headlines in recent weeks, first with the 'Kony 2012' video from the Invisible Children pressure group, and this week with the conviction of former Liberian President Charles Taylor for aiding the recruitment of child soldiers. But what is overlooked by many is how many of those children are girls.
Source: The Daily Observer
A collaborative initiative dubbed 'Empowering Rural Women Mobile Phone Project' by the American Embassy in Banjul and the Forum for African Women Educationalists The Gambia (FAWEGAM) was recently launched in Nyakoi Taibatu village in the Wulli West District, Upper River Region (URR).
Source: The New Times
It is often said that educating the girl child is equal to educating a nation. In most developing countries, Rwanda included, the girl child, has historically had a raw deal in regard to access to education.
Source: Tanzania Daily News
THE number of female students majoring in science and technology related subjects in colleges remain low due to gender stereotypes.
As the gap between promise and delivery of continental and international treaties grows larger, African women and girls are growing cynical by the day
Source: Vancouver Sun
ABIDJAN—It took a mother’s last wish, and a man to make it happen, but Ivory Coast now has it’s first all-women orchestra in what is hailed as a little "revolution" in this fiercely patriarchal society.