"As an 18 year old woman I wanted to join what I saw as the coolest and toughest force - not the Air Force, not the Navy, but the Army. I was the first woman to join, and arrived full of ideas of what life would be like as a woman in the army. Things were not as I had imagined at all...."
Sixteen countries have announced concrete commitments aimed at drastically reducing current levels of maternal, newborn and child mortality, the United Nations reported today.
How far do our post-conflict reconstruction efforts go when it comes to addressing the trauma and loss that women and girls experience during conflict? Jessica Horn reports ahead of the Nobel Women’s Initiative conference on ending sexual violence in conflict.
The Peace and Security Council of the African Union (AU), at its 279th meeting held on 18 May 2011, discussed the issue of the protection of civilian populations in armed conflicts, on the basis of the Progress Report of the Chairperson
Source: IRIN News
Maternal health will be the focus over the next week when Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon begins a four-nation trip that will take the United Nations chief to Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Ethiopia and France, his spokesperson said today. The trips to Nigeria and Ethiopia are part of the "Every Woman, Every Child" global health effort, which Mr. Ban launched in September last year during the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) summit at UN Headquarters in New York.
Source:IRIN News
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today commended the Nigerian Government for investing in women's and children's health, saying the United Nations would support efforts to make communities in the West African country healthier. "Health systems that work for women and children are health systems that work for all," Mr. Ban said when he visited the Maitama Hospital in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
Source: New York Times
BENGHAZI, Libya — In recent days, after weeks of delays and closed-door meetings, rebel leaders here have announced a slate of new appointments, including a defense chief and a minister for reconstruction and infrastructure. They have added members to a national council, to represent areas in southern, central and western Libya, all in an effort to bolster the revolution, better represent the country as a whole and — in the event that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi bolts — make civil war unlikely, the rebel leaders explained.
Source: FrenchTribune.com
A call for developing advanced techniques to meet the contraceptive needs of about of 215 million or 26 % of reproductive-age women across the developing world is being heard in the corners of the world. As per reports, one in four sub-Saharan African women is grappling to get hold of new contraceptives methods, replacing the existing methods.
Twenty-three out of the 64 women who contested the New Patriotic Party (NPP) primaries were elected as parliamentary candidates and would contest on the ticket of the NPP in the 2012 general elections.
Victoria Zanele KaMagwaza-Msibi admits she is no angel. But for 30 years she’s navigated through South Africa’s tough political landscape, mainly as a member of a male-dominated party, and now as the leader of her own political party.
Source: IPS
Come rain or shine, single mother of five, Sylvia Mathebula,* can be found selling fruit and cigarettes at the roadside because it is the only way her family can survive.
In Sierra Leone’s highly patriarchal society, where institutionalised gender inequalities are exacerbated by discriminatory customs, one group is singing its way towards changing this.
Leymah Gbowee doesn’t scare easy. She survived the barbarism of Liberia’s second civil war and the despair of living as a refugee. She went nose-to-nose with that country’s president to bring peace, and stared-down a bullying husband to escape a brutal marriage.
UNICEF Says Girl Victims of Violence Still Treated as Criminals; Panellists Tell Harrowing Stories of Turning to Prostitution, Trading Sex for School Grades
The Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) ended today after adopting the Istanbul Programme of Action which lists population, youth development, gender equality and women’s empowerment among LDCs’ priority action areas. The summit also adopted a political declaration.
The cancellation of Women's Quota without alternative legal methods that guarantee women's political participation is pushing women back to the zero point.
The African nation of Congo has been called the worst place on earth to be a woman. A new study released Wednesday shows that it's even worse than previously thought: 1,152 women are raped every day, a rate equal to 48 per hour.
Michelle Bachelet, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women, the newly established UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, is drawing attention to the urgent need to invest in gender equality, on her first official visit to the United Kingdom.
The United Nations envoy leading the world’s body efforts to eliminate sexual violence during conflict has welcomed the release of a new study on sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that indicates the prevalence of the crime is much worse than previously reported.
Tafadzwa Kazingizi, a 19-year-old mother from Chitungwiza, about 30km south of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, has been haemorrhaging since she gave birth four months ago. She did not visit a prenatal clinic during her pregnancy.