“I have seen girls become pregnant, become victims of violence and become HIV-positive, and I don't want to become one of those girls,” said 13-year-old Lydia Mwelwa, a student at Kabulonga Basic School in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital.
“I’m happy they have taught us in school how we girls can protect ourselves,” she added.
Election of women members of Parliament by adult universal suffrage is unconstitutional, Dickwitington Kimeze and Sisimuka Uganda, a non-governmental organization, claim in an April 18 petition filed at the Constitutional court.
Norah Chepkulul, a single mother of two young sons, stands outside her home, a grass thatched hut surrounded by cactus-like euphoria trees on the dusty Maasai Mara road in Kenya’s Rift Valley.
She has just finished milking her four cows and has asked the boys to keep an eye on the goats corralled in the little compound.
A few years ago, a single mother taking sole responsibility for her family would have been a rare sight among the pastoral Kipsigis and Maasai communities. Traditionally, in the predominantly herder societies men are the decision-makers and managers of land and stock.
Giving women in Africa access to caesarean sections could significantly reduce this number but don't have access due to weak health systems.
Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) disproportionately affect women and girls. Female genital schistosomiasis (FGS) alone causes severe pain, bleeding, and lesions in more than 16 million women and girls in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Buikwe — Hundreds of girls some as young as ten years at Kiyindi Landing Site in Buikwe District are forced into prostitution to fill the family neglect gap, a study has shown.
Nasaro Kiriambu, 55, cuddles her two-year-old grandson, Fabian, in a small white tent at Eldume camp in Baringo County, in western Kenya. Kiriambu arrived at the camp in March, along with her own six children, after her village was attacked by a neighboring community on a revenge mission. Nine were killed, including her daughter-in-law, the boy’s mother.
Source: News Deeply
Two year ago, during Liberia’s Ebola outbreak, Mamie Tarr began hemorrhaging. When she arrived at the clinic, clutching her abdomen and complaining of intense pain, health workers at first suspected Ebola. In fact, without telling her family, the 30-year-old had visited a backstreet abortionist who used a combination of herbs, chalk and a rusty syringe to terminate her five-month pregnancy.
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
Kenya is looking to amend its anti-trafficking law so that foreign victims of human trafficking found on Kenyan soil are not treated as criminals but given greater protection, the government's chief legal adviser said.
Source: The Monitor
This week, one woman's denouncement of domestic violence and action to seek divorce on those grounds made fodder for local media and social media.
Source: Angola Press
The National Assembly Wednesday joined the worldwide solidarity campaign for gender equality, "He for she".
Source: Daily News
All women have in-born leadership character. What needs to be added is talent promotion, and this mostly should be done to African women, who work hard but earn very little," says a political scientist and human rights activist, Prof Ruth Meena.
Source: Cameroon Tribune
With their Charter of Values adopted, signed and proclaimed they are now set for the training of women project-makers.
Source: allAfrica
Imagine a future Africa where patriarchy is dead and more women are economically empowered to provide for their own basic needs; one in which they continue to shatter the proverbial glass ceilings to occupy top leadership positions in all spheres.
The kabaka of Buganda, Ronald Muwenda Mutebi has underscored the importance of gender equality as a key tool in the development of families and a stronger society.
“Men and women are equal partners in development. I call upon women to engage in income generating activies. When women are empowered economically, families and the entire society flourish” the Kabaka said.
Source: BBC News
Algerian political parties have agreed to show female candidates' faces after some posters displayed blank avatars instead, the state news agency says. Parties in Bordj Bou Arreridj Province had been showing hijabs surrounding blank spaces alongside photos of male candidates. On Tuesday the election authorities gave parties two days to display photos or be removed from the vote. An official said the practice was illegal.
"This kind of encroachment is dangerous; it is not legal and it opposes all laws and traditions," said Hassan Noui of the Independent High Authority for Election Monitoring (HIISE).
Election of women members of Parliament by adult universal suffrage is unconstitutional, Dickwitington Kimeze and Sisimuka Uganda, a non-governmental organization, claim in an April 18 petition filed at the Constitutional court. The petitioners want only women voting for women MPs and have attached the Electoral Commission and the attorney general as respondents. The petitioners say that section 8 (4) (II) of the Parliamentary Elections Act and the Local Governments Act in providing for the election of district women MPs and Local Government women councilors under universal adult suffrage are inconsistent with articles 78 (2), (3)& (4) and articles 180 (b), (c) and (d) of the Constitution.
The balance between the sexes in the Senate looks set to remain tilted in favour of men as only 23 women have asked to be nominated for election as senators at the next General Election. No woman was elected to the Senate in the last General Election, which resulted in the 18 who got there having to be picked from the lists of would-be nominees submitted to the electoral commission before the polls.
Three Ugandan health workers have made it to the final shortlist of the inaugural Women in Focus Awards that will take place in Geneva, Switzerland this week. The awards celebrate the crucial role played by women in the on-going fight against neglected tropical diseases, a role which often goes unrecognised and unrewarded.
Source: UN Women
Emmy Choge is a wife, a mother of four and an entrepreneur for the past five years. Emmy is the perfect epitome of a “super woman”.