Source: ThinkAfricaPress
When Kulah Borbor's daughter was 13 years old, she asked her mother if she could join Liberia's secret Sande Society. Most Liberian women are members of the Sande, so her daughter's request was nothing unusual. But Borbor, a gender-based violence officer with the West Point Women for Health and Development Organisation, immediately discouraged her daughter's interest in the Sande.
Source: NewVision
The world parliamentarians ' meeting in Kampala will be dominated by maternal health issues, as African women and health experts push for more commitment to reduce the high pregnancy related deaths.The one week Inter-Parliamentary Union meet opens tomorrow, March 31. Several consultations by different lobby groups over different issues, including one on maternal health have been taking place in Kampala prior to the IPU meet. The health experts during the consultation at the Speke Resort, Munyonyo, said that they are concerned at the stubbornly high numbers of women dying in pregnancy and childbirth or as a result. They said that there is need to change strategy to tackle the issue from all fronts including Parliament and at societal level.
In Cameroon’s Northwest region, citizens, organizations and local officials are taking part in campaigns and speaking out to encourage women to run for office in the legislative and municipal elections anticipated for this year. Though a date has yet to be set for the elections, International Women’s Day this month stirred up excitement for women’s campaigns.
Introduction of free primary education in 2003 enabled a tremendous increase in number of girls attending school. Kenya is on the verge of achieving one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) on promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women, data released on Saturday by the National Economic and Social Council (NESC) reveals.
A decision by Uganda’s president to pardon an Indian man who in 2000 was sentenced to die for the torture murder of his wife has generated fierce criticism from activists who say it sends the wrong message in a country where women’s rights have long been abused.
Sustainable development will not be achieved without the full participation of women. As government officials met in March to prepare for Rio +20, the upcoming United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, a special dialogue was hosted by UN Women, with the Women’s Major Group – a formal group representing women’s priorities in sustainable development – supported by the Governments of Brazil and Switzerland.
Social policies and instruments will need to be developed to ensure that the Green Economy not only alleviates poverty and improves equity, but that the interests of the people who depend on Green Economy are deliberately safeguarded from the very outset. In 1992, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the United Nations held its landmark Conference on Environment and Development.
During a visit to Bamako, capital of Mali, on 26 February, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé observed that the Malian government would be best advised to sit down and negotiate with the MNLA (Mouvement National pour la liberation de l’Azawad), which is fighting to carve out an independent state in the north.
She is a renowned international advocate for women and children’s rights and has been a social and political activist for many decades. She is also the president of the Foundation for Community Development (FDC), a not-for-profit organisation she founded in 1994, which gives grants to civil society organisations to strengthen communities, facilitate social and economic justice, and assist in the reconstruction and development of post-war Mozambique. And her name? She is the vibrant and highly industrious woman of substance, Graça Machel, the amiable wife of Nelson Mandela.
Source: The Herald
WOMEN are demanding political parties to reserve half the number of council seats for them as part of measures to achieve the 50-50 representation by 2015.
Source: Aswat Masriya
Potential presidential candidate Mohamed Selim Al-Awa said that the case of Tahrir girl who was beaten and stripped off should be investigated and all those responsible for it will be prosecuted even it is Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi himself.
Source: The Independent
At a conference organised by the Federation for Women Lawyers at the FIDA offices in Kampala on March 29, women activists condemned the light sentence at which the Nakawa magistrate court handled the case against Emin Baro a 53 year old Turkish who was accused of molesting about 50 under aged girls and the pardoning of Sharma Kooky who has spent 12 years in jail for murdering his wife.
Source: Gender Links
Gender Based Violence (GBV) continues to be one of the foremost concerns in the struggle to achieve gender equality in the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
Source: The Herald
Zimbabwe joins Sadc countries in hosting the inaugural country level local government summits on gender and justice. In Zimbabwe, the summit gets underway in Kadoma as a precursor to the third regional summit to be held in South Africa next month.
Source: The Independent
Policy makers at the Women deliver summit in Munyonyo urged African governments to come up strong laws and policies to ensure that countries meet the millennium development goal 5 (maternal mortality) which is among the 8 MDGS that were arrived at in 2000 in New York.
Source: GenderLinks
Over two thirds of women in Botswana (67%) have experienced some form of gender violence in their lifetime including partner and non-partner violence. A smaller, but still high, proportion of men (44%) admit to perpetrating violence against women.
Source: Gender Links
Botswana's Minister of Labour and Home Affairs Honourable Minister Edwin Jenamiso Batshu will today launch The Gender Based Violence (GBV) Indicators Study Botswana (2012) report which reveals the high prevalence of GBV in the country. The research is a product of the partnership between Gender Links (GL) and the Women's Affairs Department (WAD) in the Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs in Botswana.
Source: The Informer
The Representative of the Mano River Union (MRU) in Cote d' Ivoire, Angui T. Assouakon, has called on Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), particularly women of the subregion to work in unity and collaborate with one another if they which to make progress for the 30% quota of female representation in national decision-making and politics.
According to the World Health Organisation, 60 000 women and children in South Africa are victims of domestic violence every month.