Source: Women’s Academy for Leadership and Political Excellence
The Women’s Academy for Leadership and Political Excellence (WALPE), notes with grave concern the rising incidences of systematic state security crackdown targeting women as the country goes through the third week of the government-proclaimed lockdown meant to stop the spread of the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Source: African Arguments
Abigail*, a young woman who lives in Zimbabwe’s capital Harare became pregnant by a much older married man when she was 14. She had left school because her mother couldn’t afford to pay for her fees, books and other school supplies. Her mother was also struggling to buy food and other basics for the family. The man had given her money. She felt she couldn’t refuse him as he was helping her.
Source: The New Humanitarian
Coronavirus is taking its toll on Madina’s family. Her 17-year-old daughter, Asli, who had been working in a restaurant near the airport, lost her job when the government banned international commercial flights.
Tanzania has buckled under pressure from human rights groups, activists and the US will henceforth permit pregnant girls to resume formal education as prescribed by the Secondary Education Quality Improvement Project (Sequip) financed by the World Bank.
Source: Daily Nation
small van zips through the streets of Casablanca to deliver food to single mothers, as economic paralysis caused by the coronavirus crisis puts pressure on Morocco's poor.
The United Nations has called for specific action for women on the frontline in the fight against COVID-19. It urged governments to take action for women who make up about 70% of staff of health and social services, adding that the stress and mental burden they often face at home requires specific action.
Source: IPS
In 1991, the share of seats held by women in the Ethiopian parliament was under 3 percent. Today it stands at 38 percent, almost twice the ratio of women in the United States Congress. Experts say when women are better represented in government office, the gains are likely to spill down and improve the lives of all women.
Source: UN News
The dire warning from António Guterres is laid out in a policy brief which details how the new disease is deepening pre-existing inequalities which are in turn amplifying its impacts on the lives of women and girls.
In the visitors’ books of Eshowe’s many guesthouses and hotels, tourists inspired by verdant sugar cane fields and blossoming trees write about “a corner of Eden”.
Locals and specialists know the small town set high among the rolling hills that run along South Africa’s eastern coast for another reason.
In Kenya, Always pads use a cheap material that causes irrituation for many. In Europe and the US, they don't.
For more than three decades, Procter & Gamble had a near monopoly in Kenya’s sanitary pad market. Its “Always” pads are most likely the first brand girls become familiar with, long before they even know what menstruation is. Over time, the name has also become synonymous with superior quality. Consumers feel they have no reason to try other brands.
Source: GroundUp
The Covid-19 pandemic will affect women in specific and distinct ways. It may amplify existing gender inequalities and may especially affect women who survive on the peripheries of the economy.
Source: africanews
The COVID-19 pandemic is set to exacerbate pre-existing gender inequalities and the virus’s impact will disproportionately affect women, according to the United Nations Population Fund in Sudan.
Source: 263Chat.
The Zimbabwe Gender Commission has called on the government to prioritize the needs of women and persons with disabilities during the ongoing national lockdown meant to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
Being free to refuse sex is key to women's empowerment, UNFPA says.
Source: UNCTAD
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is not gender neutral, as it affects men and women differently. Therefore, we must not be gender blind in our responses to the pandemic, or else women will carry a disproportionately higher economic cost than men.
Globally, women are more vulnerable to economic shocks wrought by crises such as the coronavirus pandemic.
Source: The Guardian
Charity warns loss of services caused by lockdowns could result in millions of unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions.
Almost half of women and girls living in more than 50 countries around the world are not able to make their own decisions about their reproductive rights, with up to a quarter saying they are unable to say no to sex, a new survey has found.
Source: All Africa
The Portfolio Committee on Women has called on households to stand together and help each other, especially women, children and disabled people who remain vulnerable to Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF) during the 21-day lockdown period.
Sierra Leone has overturned a ban on pregnant girls attending school, the government said Monday, adding that it sought to build a state that embraced every citizen.
As the coronavirus snakes its way around the world — canceling events, shuttering offices and suspending classes — some health experts worry that the crisis could put women at a disproportionate risk, exacerbating gender, social and economic fault lines.