Source: UK Zambians
A gender activist has implored government to provide strategic assistance to women as key players in economic development.

Source: IPP Media
The government will establish a research and documentation centre to enhance collection of gender disaggregated data on gender-based violence in the country, Union Vice-President Dr Gharib Mohammed Bilal said here over the weekend.

Source: The Zimbabwean
The ongoing indigenization and economic empowerment drive, launched last year and the subject of much debate, is a potential avenue through which Zimbabwean women can be empowered to claim their rightful place in the economy.

Source: IRIN
Vivien Nsenga (not her real name) does not know the year of her birth, but she knows the date of her gang-rape – 3 April 2010. A petite woman, she appears to be about 19 years old.

Source: Huffington Post
On November 2, the Subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations, Human Rights, Democracy, and Global Women's Issues and the Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Central Asian Affairs organized a testimony for the Senate Foreign Relations committee on the role of women in the Arab Spring.

Source: Advocates.com
Rising cases of a practice known as "corrective rape" whereby lesbians are raped in order to turn them straight is on the rise in South African according to a report by CNN World.

Source: Patheos
This year the Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality (WISE) held its third global conference in Istanbul Turkey. The conference, titled “WISE: Muslim Women Leaders at the Frontlines of Change,” lasted just four days, from October 14 to October 17, 2011.  It included panel discussions, debates, and training sessions.

Source: Reuters
Women should voice demands about their rights during the popular uprisings sweeping the Arab world to avoid being short-changed by post-revolutionary governments, Iranian Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi said.

Source: Morning Star
Tunisia's Islamist Ennahda Party denied having any intention to roll back women's rights in the country today after hundreds of women demonstrated in the capital.

Source: The New Age
Liberia's Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is a joint Nobel Peace Prize winner hailed as a champion for women's rights, as well as a shrewd politician who has allied with an ex-warlord to boost her re-election bid.

Source: UNDP NEWS
Bernadette Ntumba, 61, travels with her new voter’s card everywhere she goes. She is one of some 30 million people registered to vote in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s second ever national elections, scheduled for 28 November this year.

Source: The Guardian
Life-raft policies must be drawn up to counter worst threat 'in living memory' to women's hard-won rights, says charity.

Source: IRIN
Deteriorating security, rampant poverty and illiteracy, logistical difficulties and allegations of rigging are among the concerns raised by analysts and activists ahead of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) presidential and parliamentary elections, scheduled for 28 November.

Source: Swazi Observer
The women’s development bank will soon be established, following last month’s E50m pledge by NAFCOC.
The National African Federated Chamber of Commerce President Hellen Kentse Makgae made the pledge during the launch of the Swazi division of the women’s empowerment organisation.  

Source: IRIN
Women's groups in the Somali town of Galkayo are lobbying the authorities in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland to enact a law banning female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), saying the practice was becoming widespread. Activists say FGM/C causes serious health problems to the women and is against their religion.

Source: Awarness Times
Four political parties in Sierra Leone, the All People Congress APC, the Sierra Leone Peoples Party SLPP, the Peoples Movement for Democratic Change PMDC and the National Democratic Alliance NDA have called on for the participation of more women, youths and the disabled in the 2012 general elections.

Source: IPS
On the grubby edge of Old Fadama, Accra’s infamous illegal slum settlement, 67-year-old Mariana Sayitou sits under a parasol and tends to her livelihood – selling several dozen kola nuts and a few piles of bagged beans to passers-by.

Source: Toward Freedom
Last month women worldwide were delighted to hear that three women from the global south were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman were honored for their nonviolent struggles for justice in Liberia and Yemen, and for the right of women to fully participate in peacemaking.

Source: US Department of State
Testimony from Tamara C. Wittes Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs  and Deputy Special Coordinator for Middle East Transitions

Source: The National Democratic Institute
iKNOW Politics
, an online network dedicated to the advancement of women in politics around the world, has come to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

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