In July, Shaima Ghassaniya was found guilty of driving in the Saudi city of Jeddah. The penalty for defying the country’s ban on female drivers has been a sentence of 10 lashes. The verdict comes only days after Saudi Arabia’s recent moves towards liberalization.
Source: The Guardian
Britain reducing bilateral aid for projects in developing nations from nearly £60m to £41m in next four years. Britain is cutting back bilateral aid for HIV and Aids projects in developing countries by almost a third over the next four years, according to data from the Department for International Development.
A council of over 35 Libyan women will convene at the Kempinski Nile Hotel in Cairo from October 7-9 to set strategies for promoting women’s rights and female political participation in post-Gaddafi Libya.
The involvement of men is key to the success of the gender-equality movement, but changing long-held social structures and convincing men of the importance of equal opportunities for women will not happen overnight, experts say.
Source: UN News Centre
Thirty-two women leaders from 16 West African countries are meeting in Senegal today to attend a series of United Nations-backed training sessions aiming to boost the participation of female mediators in peace processes across the region.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has taken a significant decision by giving Saudi women, for the first time, the right to vote, to run in municipal elections and to be appointed as full voting members of Majilis al-Shura (consultative council).
In the recent past, land rights activists have been expressing their fears and concerns about the malicious trend of selling or leasing large farmland to foreign multinational companies and governments, without taking into account what will be the impacts on indigenous communities.
It is a well-established fact that there exist inequalities between men and women due to a long history of male dominance, advanced by cultural, religious, economic and political institutions among many societies. As a result, the majority of women who constitute 52 percent of Zimbabwe's population are largely "disempowered".
Source: Examiner
On Monday, October 3, 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will meet with 40 women entrepreneurs from 36 African nations participating in the 2011 African Women’s Entrepreneurship Program, at the U.S. Department of State.
More than 30 international experts and women's rights activists appealed for Egypt's women to be given greater scope on the country's political stage, for the elimination of gender stereotypes, and for erasing inequalities in education, training and resources.
The 2011 Women's Platform for Action in Africa opened here at the Pan-African Parliament today. The Conference was officially opened by the President of the Pan-African Parliament, Hon. Dr Moussa Idriss Ndélé, who pledged the support of the Pan-African Parliament to women participation in peace negotiations and conflict resolution and decision making
African women who bear the brunt of the continent’s conflicts now demand to play a defining role in peacekeeping.
The two women running for the presidency of Cameroon have broken a psychological barrier among women about aspiring for high political office, says a campaigner for women’s participation in politics.
After winning some concessions, women still face uphill battle in Arab societies with long-standing culture of male domination.
Source: Rand Corporation
Nearly a dozen current and former first ladies joined RAND, the United States Department of State's African Women Entrepreneurship Program (AWEP) and the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA) today to highlight and promote women's leadership and economic empowerment across Africa.
The journey so far marks 51 years of Nigeria's independence. Looking at the prospects available to the society, men glaringly appear to be privileged and advantaged. And the women? Their song has been that of marginalisation in all spheres.
Hopes for a female-controlled HIV prevention tool have been dealt a blow by the termination of one part of a large African trial after it failed to show effectiveness.
Source: IPS
Less than 10 percent of the world's political leaders are female, according to United Nations figures, but many of them were present Monday at U.N. headquarters in New York, where they reiterated calls for increased participation for women as critical to both economic development and democracy.
Brothers, husbands, boyfriends and fathers are key actors in the creation of a world where girls enjoy the same rights as boys, and will themselves benefit from greater gender equality, stresses a new report from Plan International released Thursday.
The streets around the headquarters of the world's leading financial institutions – the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – have been transformed into a canvas over the last three days.