Source: New Era
The Windhoek Magistrate's Court on Monday postponed to November 22 the criminal case in which a police officer is accused of raping a 24-year-old woman and a 15-year-old girl who used to stay with him at his house.
Source: Daily Nation
Interviews closed on Tuesday for the National Gender and Equality Commission chairperson and member.
Source: IRIN News
Daniel Soadava and Samoela Razafindramboho are known as "the mean women" in Antalaha, a small town on the east coast of Madagascar. "Men complain that we are always saying bad things about them," they laugh.
Source: Angola Press
Staff of the second infantry division of the northern military region of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) Wednesday in Malanje were informed about the Law Against Domestic Violence, during a lecture sponsored by the provincial department of family and women promotion.
SOURCE: (WNN) MADAGASCAR-Womennewsnetwork
A 38-year-old woman named Say Louise from Ilafitsignana, Madacascar has happy memories of childhood, when her father’s job with the port management authority in Fort Dauphin (and later his farming and fishing) provided for all the family’s needs. Harvests and fish were plentiful.
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A midwife from Katine village in Uganda is fronting a campaign to draw attention to Africa's high maternal mortality rates and advocate for ways to reduce it. Priscilla Alupo is propped up on a bed in Tiriri health centre's postnatal ward on a sunny Saturday afternoon in Katine, north east Uganda.
Source: The Interpreter
One of the imponderables this early in the life of the Arab Spring is the degree to which the political upheavals will result in substantive, rather than cosmetic, improvements to women's political roles in the Arab world.
When Aisha Diis* and her five children fled their home in Somalia seeking aid from the famine devastating the region, she could not have known the dangers of the journey, or even fathom that she would be raped along the way.
As the Norwegian Nobel Committee named Liberian President Ellen Johnson- Sirleaf a joint winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, opposition party supporters were flooding the streets of Monrovia to demand that she be voted out of office in the upcoming election.
Institutions involved in brokering peace talks in West Africa must include women in mediation exercises if they are to achieve effective conflict resolution, activists say.
In solidarity with the women of the region, Femmes Africa Solidarité (FAS) is actively supporting the Mano River Women’s Peace Network (MARWOPNET) and the Angie Brooks International Center (ABIC) their joint effort for political stabilization and to participate and women’s presidential to election in Liberia.
Source: OpenDemocracy
“We have included the Arab Spring in this prize, but we have put it in a particular context. Namely, if one fails to include the women in the revolution and the new democracies, there will be no democracy.” Thorbjoern Jagland, chair of the Nobel Prize Committee.
Source: John K.Abimanyi-All Africa.com
If a woman was raped somewhere in your neighbourhood, you can bet your lunch, somebody out there will raise their vindictive finger of blame and unwaveringly, point it straight at the woman, her dressing to be exact.
Source: AWID
In 2003, Sylvia Tamale was named as the “Worst Woman of the Year” by a conservative bloc within Uganda. Working at the time as an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at Makerere University (she later became its Dean), she was vilified for weeks within one of Kampala’s major daily newspapers, New Vision, as responsible for everything from the moral degeneration of the nation to the reason Ugandan teenagers were going to go to hell.
Source: UN News Centre
An independent United Nations human rights expert told the General Assembly today that violence against women across the world continues to be pervasive and widespread and reminded States of their obligation under international law to protect women.
Source: UN Women
Introductory statement by UN Women Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director for Intergovernmental Support and Strategic Partnerships Lakshmi Puri at the Third Committee of the sixty-sixth session of the General Assembly on the advancement of women, 10 October 2011.
Source: IRIN
Catherine Bertini, the former head of the World Food Programme is beating a drum for teenage girls, especially those girls who live in rural areas of developing countries.
Bertini has led a team from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in writing a policy document called Girls Grow: a Vital Force in Rural Economies, which urges far more attention to the needs of these adolescents, not just because of justice or fairness, but also because it is crucial for the world’s food supply.
She points out that the world is going to need an estimated 70 percent more food by 2050; Africa and Asia are going to have to become much more productive. And since in many developing countries it is the women who are the farmers, the girls of today will have to make this happen. Unless they grow up educated, healthy and confident, the world will face a hungry future. “So if this is a priority,” she says, “we must make the people doing it a priority as well.”
Alongside her at the launch of the report was Nafis Sadik, former executive director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), who spoke with passion about the girls and young women she had known in her long career as a gynaecologist, especially in her own country, Pakistan. What pains her most is the girls’ low status and their powerlessness, even in the decisions that most affect their own lives - whom to marry, when to marry, when to have children. “Religious and cultural attitudes to girls mean that decisions must be dictated by men, or by the whole family. Only she herself is excluded.”
Nearly half of rural women in developing countries are married before they are 18. Sadik recalled exchanges with pregnant young women among her patients. “You can tell them how to protect their health, but then you realize they are not in a position to make those choices. If you advise them to eat better, they look at you as if you are on the moon.”
Practical measures
The newly published report has plenty of concrete suggestions about ways to help these adolescent girls fulfil their potential. It may be straightforward practical issues which are keeping girls out of school - lack of decent toilet facilities, parents’ fears about a long and risky journey, or their reluctance to entrust her to male teachers.
All these things can be fixed. A simple change in teaching hours can allow girls to walk to and from school in daylight. Wells in school compounds can mean girls don’t have to choose between going to school and fetching water; they can attend school, and still go home with water for the family.
The authors suggest “second chance” programmes for girls who were never able to finish formal education, and childcare facilities for girls who have to look after their own babies, or their younger brothers and sisters. It all adds up to schools which fit in with the girls’ lives, not the other way around.
In health terms the report suggests a “12-year check”, the kind of developmental milestone check which is now routine for babies. This can establish whether a girl is healthy, well nourished and developing properly before she embarks on the demanding adolescent years, and allow health workers to offer advice to both the girls and their families.
The report also emphasizes the need for registration of children, since without accurate knowledge of age, it is impossible to enforce existing laws on school leaving age or child marriage.
Much of the wider importance of these rural adolescents lies in their potential as farmers, and the publication urges the inclusion of teenagers in agricultural extension work, making training, small loans, seed and fertilizers available to them as well as to older members of the communities. But it also wants them to raise their sights higher than just farming, perhaps to become junior extension workers themselves, learning and then spreading good practice among their peers; or processing their produce, and building up businesses as budding entrepreneurs.
Indian project
In the West Bengal village of Bholakhali one project is trying to encourage some of these aspirations. “Adopt a Mangrove” enlists girls to plant and maintain barriers against erosion in the Sunderbans and protect the vulnerable islands where they live, giving them useful expertise, and also a small cash income for their families and communities.
The driving force behind the project is not much older than the tree planters herself - Rishika Das Roy, a 21-year-old political science student from Kolkata. As well as doing important work, she and the girls also clearly have a lot of fun.
Even in a short time Roy can see a rise in the girls’ confidence and in their standing in their families and community. She told IRIN: “There is an increase in status. Everyone takes notice of them, because they are the ones protecting the community. When that storm comes, the trees planted by them take most of the brunt. Last time there was a storm, the men asked the women for help, which is completely against their macho nature in this area, being the protector, being the more dominant one in the family.
“I know it’s a cliché to talk about dignity, but it’s really important. If you work with these girls, you see how they feel they are inferior… I have a huge premium on dignity, and anything that accords them dignity, changes the pattern of society.”
So have the girls started to change? “They are more confident, yes,” says Roy, “but it’s usually restricted to when they are in their peer group. When they are with boys, in a group of 10 perhaps three girls will speak out; the others will stay silent. But a more assertive girl is more receptive to education because she knows she can do something with it. There is no point teaching a girl to grade six and then saying, `OK now let’s just get married.’ You need to make her believe that what she is studying is going to bring her something in life.”
Source: RNW
Liberian President, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, enthusiastically welcomed the Nobel Peace Prize award on Friday, describing it as recognisition for years of fighting for democracy in Liberia. The announcement comes just days before Sirleaf seeks re-election Liberia's historic presidential and legislative elections on Tuesday, October 11, 2011.
Source: Angola Press
The province of Uíge will host from 13 to 15 October the VII National Forum on Rural Women with activities presided over by the minister of Women Promotion, Genoveva da Conceição Lino aiming to find solution to improve the situation of rural woman.
Source: Angola Press
The Vice-minister of Family and Women Promotionç, Ana Paula Sacramento Neto, is since thsi Sunday in Luena distict, eastern Moxico province, to present on Monday the law on domestic violence.