Source: Morocco World News
Do land, seeds and crops have a gender? Perhaps they do in sub-Saharan Africa, where women produce up to 80% of foodstuffs for household consumption and sale in local markets, according to a report by the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). For crops such as rice, wheat and maize, make up about 90% of food consumed by rural dwellers, it is women who mostly sow the seeds, do the weeding, cultivate and harvest the crops and sell surpluses.
And for secondary crops such as legumes and vegetables, says the FAO, “Women’s contribution…is even greater,” adding that it’s as if only women are involved in producing these crops. What’s more, they make and tend the gardens that provide much-needed nutritional and economic well-being.
Source: This Day Live
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Women Affairs and Youths Matters, Senator Helen Esuene, Sunday said that bill on sexual violence and harassment against women would soon be passed by the Senate.
Esuene, representing Akwa Ibom South senatorial district, stated this at the inauguration of the National Executive Council of Ibom Consolidated Assembly (ICA), in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.
Source: Times Live
Legal abortion has been available in South Africa since 1997, but backstreet abortionists still advertise widely, with some desperate women using over-the-counter herbal products to induce labour.
Research by University of Cape Town Women's Reproductive Health Unit director Professor Jane Harries and colleague Deborah Constant found that 17% of mothers admitted to trying to terminate their pregnancies at home or by approaching a backstreet abortionist.
Source: Daily News
A 10-year-old Sengalese girl who was raped and is carrying twins has been denied an abortion.
The young girl was raped by a neighbor, reports The Guardian.
"She is going to have to go through with the pregnancy," said Fatou Kine Camara, president of the Senegalese women lawyers' association, which has been campaigning to the authorities for her to have a legal abortion.
Source: Care2
Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill appears to have sparked a renewed interest in persecuting LGBT people across Africa, sometimes with violent consequences. Here are five stories of shocking persecution and anti-LGBT rhetoric that cannot be ignored.
Source: Leadership
In the African cosmos, the man, as head of the family is, expected to lead, provide for and protect his family. This has been his role for millennia, until now. With the passing of time in an era many consider the post-modern age, men are increasingly giving up this role to their wives. Although the prevailing norm still says that a man should be the family's
Source: Newera
OMUTHIYA – Police Deputy Commissioner Naomi Katjiua has expressed disappointment in the high number of rapes in Oshikoto Region, which she said is "embarrassing".
Source: National Geographic
Crowds of police officers and nurses converged in a room painted with bright alphabet letters at a hospital in Rwanda's capital, Kigali. A plush frog and a couple of dolls with Afros lay on the table, props that might be used by a child to entertain herself while her mother seeks care or to act out a haunting scene of abuse for a counselor.
Source: Frost Illustrated
A new study by the research group AfroBarometer finds that despite a flurry of new laws against gender violence, for political participation and other benefits, Africa's women still suffer a disadvantage in education, jobs and political participation—three major areas.
Source: UNDP
"You could say my job is exciting," said Margarida Luis Sitoe, a manual de-miner who works with UNDP's humanitarian demining partners, Apopo. "It's hard work but I enjoy it and, as an African woman, I feel empowered in such a position."
Source: Daily Observer
The First Lady of the Republic has reaffirmed that the Organisation of African First Ladies Against HIV/AIDS (OAFLA) remains committed to the global vision of getting to zero discrimination, zero new HIV infection and AIDS related diseases. She noted that their campaign to prevent the transmission of HIV from mothers to their babies is at a particularly crucial moment.
Source: Vanguard
Abuja – Sen. Florence Ita-Giwa has decried the rising cases of violence against women in Nigeria, saying it greatly violated their rights as human being and as citizens of the country.
Source: Southern Times Africa
International Women's Day on March 8 is an annual commemoration extending back for over a century. In Africa women have been in the forefront of the movements toward national liberation, social and environmental justice as well as gender equality.
Source: The New Times
Rwandans will no longer have to travel abroad to get fertility-related care following the opening of a fertility clinic in Kigali.
Source: The Analyst
Monrovia — The mother of a fifteen year old girl who gave birth to a triplex in Camp 4 in Nimba County is calling on the government and philanthropic organizations to help provide support for the children.
Source: Times of Zambia
Women and girls in Zambia are continuously facing outrageous discrimination and violations of their human rights. Everyday in the media there are stories of Gender Based Violence (GBV) such as defilement cases, early marriages and other forms of discrimination and abuse against women.
Source: Tanzania Daily News
THE government envisages building medical operation theatres and maternity waiting rooms in all district health centres, in a quest to improve reproductive health services which, at the moment, are bleak.
Source: Daily Trust
Mrs Amina Suzanah Agbaje is a private legal practitioner, Notary Public and Managing Partner Lex Suites (a Law Firm in Abuja) and current Chairperson of the International Federation of Women Lawyers FIDA (Nigeria) Abuja branch. In this interview she speaks on women rights, domestic violence, child molestation, among others.
Source: CaitalFM
Nairobi — The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has established and deployed a specialised Anti-Female Genital Mutilation Unit (FGM) to the counties that is charged with prosecution and sensitisation of communities on legislation that prohibits the practice.
Source: Tanzania Daily News
WHEN one attends a meeting where women activists and politicians convene, there is something that becomes evident.