Source: New Dawn
Free trade could help develop value chains and skills, especially for small-scale women miners. Nellie Mutemeri with fanfare, trading under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) started on 1 January 2021. There was a big celebration in Accra, Ghana, where the AfCFTA Secretariat is located.
Source: The New York Times
MEKELLE, Ethiopia — Mona Lisa lay on a hospital bed in Mekelle, the main city in war-torn northern Ethiopia, her body devastated but her defiance on display.
Named for the iconic painting, the 18-year-old Ethiopian high school graduate had survived an attempted rape that left her with seven gunshot wounds and an amputated arm. She wanted it to be known that she had resisted.
Source: The Guardian
A community project on the Lamu archipelago trains women in preserving this vital ecosystem and provides business loans.
Source: Nigeria Health Watch
Indo (not her real name) was just 15 years old when she became pregnant. Her boyfriend took her to the only general hospital in their community to terminate the pregnancy. The general hospital did not offer safe abortion services, so, the midwife advised them to formally inform their parents and make necessary arrangements to have the baby.
Source: Africa News
On Tuesday 25 May, African governments would commemorate what is known as "Africa Day".
The day (formerly known as African Freedom Day and African Liberation Day) is the annual commemoration of the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) on 5 May 1963.
Source: The Herald
For years, Patience Matope has managed to survive on subsistence farming, producing grain, ground nuts and vegetables from her family's piece of land.
She has managed to produce enough to sustain the family and surplus for sale in the same area or Harare.
She was, however, left with uncertainties after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, which was first detected in China in December 2019.
Source: Reuters
Niger’s human rights commission has called for an independent inquiry following alleged rapes, including that of an 11-year old girl, by Chadian soldiers deployed in the country to help fight armed groups.
Source: Nyasa Times
Government has challenged traditional and community leaders in Dowa and Ntchisi to take a leading role in safeguarding and promoting the rights of girls and women in their societies.
Gender Officer in the Ministry of Gender, Community Development and Social Welfare, Kondwani Mhone, observed that violence is contributed to rising levels of inequalities in Malawi.
Source: UN News
South Africa's failure to address domestic violence is a violation of women's rights, independent UN experts said in a report published on Monday, citing low levels of prosecution and conviction as factors.
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) visited the country in September 2019 to conduct a confidential inquiry into allegations raised by civil society organizations.
Source: The Point
The minister of Women Affairs, Children, and Social Welfare has revealed that women make up about 51% of the country's population with a literacy level of about 48.1% between the ages of 15 - 49, according to MICS 2018 report.
Source: The Conversation Africa
In 2019, Zimbabwean comedy made international news when comedian Samantha Kureya, known on stage as Gonyeti, was abducted and tortured by masked gunmen.
She is one of many comedians in Zimbabwe who have faced violent repercussions for their comedy. Interviewing 23 stand-up comedians in Zimbabwe in 2018 and 2019, I was made aware of how several comedians had been intimidated, harassed or arrested because they joked about the "wrong" political party, policy or decision.
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
It is the second time Egypt's parliament has cracked down on FGM — which typically involves the removal of a girl's external genitalia — but activists remain skeptical about enforcement in a country where cutting is deep-rooted and widespread.
Source: Africanews
More than 20 Congolese women have claimed to have been sexually abused, in the form of job blackmail, by aid workers in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to an investigation released Wednesday.
Source: Reuters
Kenyan judge Martha Koome has defended dissidents and helped to write women's rights into the constitution - now she's on track to be the first female chief justice in a country where the role is particularly sensitive.
Source: VOA
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights is calling on Uganda to amend a bill to ban same-sex relations that it says would violate human rights standards and undermine public health.
Source: The Organization for World Peace
According to various United Nations (UN) and human rights organization reports, there has been a dramatic increase in sexual violence and assault cases towards women in the Anglophone Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon. According to Al Jazeera, the main perpetrators of the attacks are “armed separatists, military personnel and civilians.” Children and women have been the main targets of sexual violence during the conflict that has caused mass displacement and harm in Cameroon since 2016.
Source: Africa Union Commission
The Special Envoy of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission is following with great concern the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on Palma and other districts of Mozambique’s northern province of Cabo Delgado and the impact on women and girls.
Source: UNFPA East and Southern Africa
United Nations — Fully investing in midwives by 2035 would avert roughly two-thirds of maternal, newborn deaths and stillbirths, saving 4.3 million lives per year.
Millions of lives of women and newborns are lost, and millions more experience ill health or injury, because the needs of pregnant women and skills of midwives are not recognized or prioritized.
Source: UNAIDS
Winnie Byanyima, the UNAIDS Executive Director, recently visited the Hakahana Clinic in Katutura, Windhoek, Namibia, where she saw the Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-Free, Mentored and Safe (DREAMS) project in action, a project funded by the United States of America. The clinic is a government health facility and a DREAMS participating clinic that has provided health services to 10–24-year-old adolescent girls and young women since September 2020.
Source: The New Times
There is need for more female journalists in decision-making positions and protection of women in the trade from sexual and any other violence that may impede their career growth, officials have said.
The call was made on Monday as the world celebrates Press Freedom Day which is marked every year on May 3.