Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
Heat-holding rocks dramatically reduce the amount of cooking fuel needed - and solar panels provide electricity as well
Source: newsdeeply.com
Margaret was 15 when her parents told her she was getting married. Her future husband was a 36-year-old farmer from her home village of Sakabusolo, in southern Uganda. She begged her parents to let her stay in school, but they said they needed the dowry money. The groom paid them $80.
Source: newsdeeply.com
Millions of girls and women are displaced and on the move right now globally – and the Trump administration’s proposed drastic cuts to humanitarian aid will have a major impact on these girls’ and women’s health. An especially important but often overlooked issue is one of the most basic parts of life for women – menstruation.
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
Pregnant and abandoned by the father of her unborn child despite his promises of marriage, 16-year-old Coumba did not think her plight could get any worse - until she told her family. "My mother said she regretted that I was ever born," the teenager told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an empty classroom of a secondary school in the Senegalese city of Thies.
Source:Thomson Reuters Foundation
More countries need to collect specific data on how disasters affect women and girls to improve their chances of surviving and help governments to create effective risk reduction strategies, the deputy head of the United Nations' women's agency said.
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
Anthio Mounkoro has been farming land in Bogossoni for as long as she can remember – but none of it was ever hers. "The land I've been cultivating my whole life is my father's," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation while meticulously watering a batch of shallots, careful not to waste one drop from the hose. "No woman in my village owns land – that's for men, it's just the way it is."
At a hospital in Botswana’s capital, the introduction of a weekly meeting for cervical cancer care providers has resulted in a sharp reduction in delays for treatment.
A self-help group of women farmers is defying the effects of climate change and making a steady income by growing drought-resistant sorghum on contract for a national brewery.
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
When Allan Maleche was offered a position at one of Kenya's top law firms on graduation, he did not imagine a future as an activist standing up to government and challenging tradition. But he could not shake off the human rights bug which he had caught during a holiday job working with an HIV/AIDS charity - so he quit the prestigious firm.
Source: News Deeply
South Africa is a country with extremely high levels of domestic violence, where one in five women over the age of 18 report being abused by a partner. In the 2015-16 financial year, there were new applications for protection orders made in domestic violence cases, a 4.3 percent rise from the previous year. The country passed the Domestic Violence Act in 1998, but women’s rights advocates say the process for reporting and escaping perpetrators is slow and complicated.
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
President Donald Trump's dramatic expansion of a policy blocking U.S. aid to organisations offering abortion services will have one sure result, say medical workers in this city: more abortions.
Source: theconversation.com
Kenyan folk stories celebrate women as strong, fierce heroines of the distant past. Women in some communities in western and central Kenya are said to have enjoyed considerable power directly or indirectly as chiefs, queens, queen mothers and advisors.
Source: hrw.org
Most women and girls in the rebel-held Nuba Mountains of Sudan lack access to reproductive health care, including emergency obstetric care, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Their plight is one of the little known yet far-reaching effects of years of obstruction of aid to the area by the Sudanese government and armed opposition.
Angeline Murimirwa Grew up in the small village of Denhere in rural Zimbabwe, where families often cannot afford to send their children to secondary school. Camfed, a nonprofit organization dedicated to eradicating poverty in Africa through girls’ education, paid for her school-going costs through a bursary for her entire secondary education, which she completed in 1998.
Source: allAfrica.com
There was outpouring of emotions yesterday as the 82 Chibok school girls who were rescued recently from the Boko Haram nest reunited with their parents and other members of their families after three years in captivity.
Source: bbc.com
A white coffin carries the remains of Karabo Mokoena. Her friends and family have gathered to say an untimely goodbye to their loved one. She was found dead, burnt beyond recognition and buried in a shallow grave in a deserted field, several days after she went missing. It is alleged that her boyfriend Sandile Mantsoe doused her body with acid and then set her alight when she threatened to leave him.
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
Thousands of girls from all over Ethiopia are trafficked to Addis Ababa to work in domestic service, some ending up in conditions comparable to slavery.
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
The Kenyan government should protect women politicians from harassment, beatings and intimidation in the countdown to August polls, female candidates have said following a spate of attacks and at least one death related to the election. "The dangers that women aspirants face are unacceptable and have been tolerated for far too long," said Esther Passaris, who was targeted while campaigning at the weekend for one of Kenya's women-only seats. "Something must be done."
Every other December, scores of Tanzanian girls endure what's colloquially known as "cutting season." Now, new mapping technology can help activists locate girls who might be in danger—and get them to safe houses before it's too late.
Source: Medium
It was a long walk home for Maria on that day in Malawi in February 2011. She had been trying for two years to become pregnant, and the nurse at the clinic had just confirmed that she was indeed pregnant with her first child! But the nurse also explained that she was HIV positive, and needed to take steps to protect her unborn child from becoming HIV positive, and for her own health.