This year’s election in Nigeria saw some important gains in women’s political participation. President Goodluck Jonathon appointed 33% of cabinet positions to women (up from 10% in the last government), including the ministerial portfolios of finance and education. This is in keeping with Nigeria’s commitments to gender equality, encapsulated in the National Gender Policy, which sets the benchmark for women’s seats in Parliament at 35% - 5% higher than the international standard.
Source: Voice of America
A British Medical Journal editorial calls for a moral and political movement to end violence and oppression against women and girls. It says about one billion women worldwide have been beaten, coerced into having sex or otherwise abused.
Female prisoners around the world are being subjected to body cavity searches, beatings and force-feeding, are held in padded cells, shackled during childbirth, and made to work in chain gangs. Some of the worst conditions are in developing countries, but there are also serious abuses and overcrowding in Europe and North America. These are the major findings of a survey by The Independent on Sunday to mark the first anniversary of United Nations rules governing the treatment of women in prison.
Source: IRIN
Aid agencies are warning donors to act now to avert a drought and food security crisis that could mean over 11 million people sink into further food insecurity, poverty or malnutrition.
Source: Uganda Media Centre
Your Excellencies, In the past, it has been said that women’s concerns are ‘cultural’, while men’s concerns are ‘political’. Accordingly, rape has been regarded as private and cultural, rather than criminal and political. The Great Lakes Conference, however, treats women’s rights and the prevention of sexual violence as central to its peace, security and development interests.
Source: IPS
As South Sudan maps out its economic future at the South Sudan International Engagement Conference (IEC) this week in Washington, women from the new country called on donors to invest in projects that ensure women benefit equally from development plans.
In January, Egyptian women stunned the world when they took to the streets alongside men to topple the corrupt Mubarak regime. With their designer sunglasses and flowered scarves, they won the hearts of people around the world.
Source: IPS
On an elegant veranda adorned with a red carpet, Malawi’s Vice President Joyce Banda recalls how her childhood friend Chrissie Mtokoma was always top of their class and how she struggled to beat her. But now decades later Banda is a likely contender for the country’s presidency in 2014, while Mtokoma lives in poverty.
A Ugandan woman has been elected to serve as a judge at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) the principal judicial organ of the United Nations.
Source: The Guardian
The arrest and brutal treatment of this young woman reminds us that the revolution is far from over. The woman is young, and slim, and fair. She lies on her back surrounded by four soldiers, two of whom are dragging her by the arms raised above her head. She's unresisting – maybe she's fainted; we can't tell because we can't see her face.
Source: The Herald
From November 25 to December 10 the nation commemorated 16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence. This period also saw the launch of the 4Ps Campaign on Zero Tolerance to gender based violence.
Source: IMF
Up to the moment when Edna Sakwa, 22, walked into the offices of AkiraChix in downtown Nairobi, she had barely touched a computer. Her lack of tech savvy meant she was puzzled when she first heard the acronym “IT” for information technology.
Source: GNA
The Enslavement Prevention Alliance-West Africa (EPAWA), a non-governmental organisation (NGO) has urged men, especially those in leadership positions to collaborate with women, and other key stakeholders to fight against women-based violence in the country.
Source: Times of Zambia
First Lady Christine Kaseba has called on member States of the Great Lakes Region to domesticate all relevant international and regional instruments that focus on women.
Source: Voice of America
Member states of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region wrapped up a five-day summit on sexual and gender-based violence on Friday, calling for collective action in tackling an issue that has touched every country in the region.
Source: Voice of America
The United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women Rashida Manjoo spoke to reporters in Nairobi Friday about her just-concluded mission to Somalia, where she examined the occurrence of gender-based violence there.
It is an exciting time for Egypt as the country headed to the polls again this week for another round of parliamentary elections in what is being widely hailed as the first free and fair vote in decades. But for Egypt’s women, who make up 52% the country’s eligible voters, the polling is less fair than they had hoped.
Source: France 24
Hamadi Jebali, the secretary general of Tunisia’s moderate Islamist party Ennahda, spoke to FRANCE 24 on Wednesday as he was officially named the country’s new prime minister. He is now tasked with forming a government.
Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro today stressed that efforts to restore peace and stability in Africa’s Great Lakes region will not come to fruition unless the scourge of sexual violence is completely eradicated and justice systems are strengthened to end impunity.
Source: IPS
The women of Makoko, a low-lying slum close to the Lagos Lagoon along Nigeria’s Atlantic coast, always sleep with one eye open. Many live in fear that when they go to sleep at night they will wake to flooded homes and business."The other day, I slept and dreamt that a cold breeze was blowing on me. When I woke up I realised that I was actually sleeping in a flooded room," Dupe Faseun, a single mother of five and self-employed canteen owner, told IPS.