Source: VanguardBEFORE now, it was common sight to behold several children of school age in the streets of Lagos hawking wares either for their parents or guardians in order to eke out a living even while their privileged peers are busy in classrooms acquiring knowledge.
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Source: Reuters AfricaMorocco on Thursday said it would amend a law allowing rapists to marry their underage female victims after the suicide of a teenage girl raised doubts about the effectiveness of reforms to women's rights in the country.
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Source: IRIN
Zimbabwe's ambitious plan to offer an HIV test to every household in the country is not yet under way but is already being met with scepticism by activists who feel this is not a priority for the country, especially with global HIV/AIDS funding on the decline.
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Source: AWIDThe role of women and girls as key to changing the course of development has received increasing attention in recent years, further bolstered by calls for making gender equality a cornerstone of development, but has the rhetoric of commitment translated into actual financial support?
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Source: IPS "I would like to use contraception, but my husband is against it," says Bintou Moussa*. The 32-year-old mother has just given birth to her sixth child at the Abobo General Hospital in Cote d’Ivoire’s commercial capital Abidjan.
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Source: Voice of AmericaWomen activists and lawyers are pressing for justice in the December gang rape of a woman in northern Mozambique. Investigators allegedly haven’t visited the crime scene and the 17 attackers walk free as tradition clashes with law in the southern African nation. Johannes Myburgh went to Pemba in northern Mozambique and brings us this report.
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Source: The Daily ObserverThe European Union charge d' affaires in The Gambia has bemoaned the widespread violence against women, saying "thousands of women and girls are victims of gender-based violence every single day in the form of sexual abuse, trafficking or early and forced marriage".
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Source: Voice of AmericaThe U.S. Embassy Public Affairs Section says the program is part of a year-long mentoring programme for young women journalists to help improve their reporting skills and prepare them for decision-making positions within the media.
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Source: The ZimbabweanThe Research and Advocacy Unit is deeply concerned with the manner in which political violence has contributed to poverty among rural women. Political violence as witnessed during the 2008 disputed elections resulted in the injury of many women, leaving them maimed and unable to fend for their families. Breadwinners were killed or disappeared resulting in income losses and at times forcing families into abject poverty.
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Source: Angola PressAngola's minister of Justice, Guilhermina Prata, said Wednesday in Luanda that the adoption of the Law on Domestic Violence in Angola results from the commitment shown by political power to tackle the social issues, especially involving women and children.
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Source: IRINA ruling by the International Criminal Court (ICC) finding former Congolese rebel leader Thomas Lubanga guilty of conscripting child soldiers in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Ituri region is good news in the fight against impunity but more crimes there should be prosecuted, say analysts.
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Source: The GuardianThe verdict over 'virginity tests' was a blow to the feminist struggle in Egypt. Here, the woman who sacrificed everything to bring the case to court, warns that women's rights are now under threat from two sides - the military and the Islamists.
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Source: HeritageThe United Nations (UN) through the UN Women Executive Director, Michelle Bachelet, has called for the full empowerment and participation of women aimed at finding enduring solutions to major changes globally.
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Source: Vibe GhanaMadam Sheila Minka Premo, a Lawyer and Gender Advocate, has observed that some Ghanaian cultural beliefs and practices, hindered women from participating actively in politics.
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Source: Public AgendaWomen's participation in national decision making has shaped, and continues to shape, the political direction and destiny of Ghana. The role played by women in the struggle for Ghana's independence in 1957 cannot be over-emphasised.
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Source: Gender LinksDelegates to the first Zambia Gender Justice and Local Government Summit have called on the government and political parties to take special measures to increase women's participation in decision-making and redouble efforts to end gender violence.
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Source: 7th Space InteractiveSouth Africa celebrated this year's International Women's Day with calls for African leaders to advance women's participation in politics and empowering them economically.
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Source: IPSWhen the United Nations concluded a two-week session highlighting the plight of rural women last week, the meetings singled out both the achievements and shortcomings of the ongoing relentless battle for gender equality in a world still dominated - and overwhelmingly ruled - by men.
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