Having served one term as Chile’s first female president, Michelle Bachelet last year became the head of UN Women, an agency working for gender equality and the empowerment of women.
We, the Executive Directors of the World Food Programme and UN Women dedicate this Earth Day to the young girls who spend a full day in search of firewood, to the mothers who sell food rations to buy fuel for their family, and to the countless women who are forced to skip meals because wood is not available or unaffordable to cook their food.
Violence continues to be a serious problem in Africa, according to a Tanzanian scholar.
UN Women Executive Director Michelle Bachelet, statement at the Women’s Foreign Policy Group, 20 April, 2012 Washington, DC.
More than half of the world’s poor don’t use banks, leaving them vulnerable to loss, theft and exploitation. More than half of the world's poorest people don't use banks, leaving them vulnerable to theft, loss of money and exploitation, according to a new Gallup Poll conducted for The World Bank. Hardest hit are poor women, who may not have control over their own assets.
When it comes to Islamic law, one short verse in the Koran poses one very big obstacle to advocates for Muslim women’s rights--but they may have found a way around it.
‘The timely, thought-provoking essays of this book provide valuable evidence of the impact of different gender and faith perspectives on practical development issues while also highlighting the complexities and ambiguities of religious influences. Development workers, researchers and social activists will gain from these studies a greater awareness and more critical understanding of how different religious beliefs and practices, whether of Christianity, Buddhism or Islam in the Middle East, Asia, Africa or Latin America, can either be a potential barrier or alternatively a strong incentive for social change.’
Participants at a forum on women’s rights at Keta have slammed the Department of Social Welfare and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) for doing too little in protecting women’s rights and interests.
How can we empower women to participate in existing economic structures but transform them? We need a model of economic power and citizenship that is not simply about sustaining capital or growth, but sustaining and celebrating life itself. Jenny Allsopp reports directly from the AWID Forum 2012. Here are parts two and three of her report.
Source: The New Times
SITTING under the shade of a mango tree, Agnes Uyisabye is reviewing the lists of beneficiaries of the country's health insurance scheme alongside a dozen or so grassroots community health workers.
Source: The Star
Police have been accused of not doing enough to protect women from violence.
Source: Rhrealitycheck
The 12th Annual AWID Forum is taking place April 18-22 in Istanbul, Turkey, drawing more than 2,000 feminist and development thinkers from around the world. The theme is Transforming Economic Power to Advance Women’s Rights and Justice. Editor-in-Chief Jodi Jacobson and Global Contributor Jessica Mack are in Turkey for the event and will bring you up-to-date news and insights throughout. Follow #AWIDForum and #AWID2012 on Twitter for more updates.
Source: GhanaWeb
The International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) on Wednesday said, it viewed with dismay the gradual plunging of Ghana into mayhem as a result of the political violence which had characterized the biometric voter registration. A statement issued by Ms Jane Quaye, Executive Director of FIDA and copied to the GNA in Accra said the battering of Ms Ursula Owusu called for great concern because the incident was creating a test case for women who might wish to venture into politics.
Source: The Citizen
Ngorongoro. Boers opted for an extreme form of racism to claim a lion’s share of South Africa’s resources and human rights at the expense of the majority black Africans. Using all resources at its disposal to embark on a vigorous fight against the apartheid regime, Tanzania confirmed that it loathes racism and all other forms of discrimination. Surprisingly, however, discrimination abounds in Tanzania with male chauvinism taking its toll on women in the name of maintenance of culture in the 21st century.
Source: ThisDayLive
Few years ago, 53 Heads of States gathered in Libya and agreed to ratify and accede to all OAU and AU treaties by July of the year 2010.
Relying on Article 4.1(b) of the Rules of Procedures of the Assembly of Heads of States, these African leaders further called on the different organs of the African Union to assist with advocacy and sensitisation of African Governments “to monitor the implementation of policies and decisions of the Union as well as ensure compliance by all Member States”.
PORT MORESBY, 18 April 2012 (PlusNews) - High levels of sexual violence and a cultural belief in witchcraft are putting an increasing number of women at risk of HIV in Papua New Guinea (PNG), health experts say.
A new partnership between the EU and UN Women set up to strengthen cooperation between the two organizations on their work on empowering women and gender equality, was today signed by High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/ Vice President of the Commission Catherine Ashton and Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs, with Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women Michelle Bachelet.
A United Nations independent human rights expert today urged the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) authorities – at Federal and Emirate level – to further concentrate on the plight of the victims of trafficking, while keeping up their fight against human trafficking.`
If women activists are excited, it is because this represents progress in Southern Africa as we ebb closer to 2015, in which 50% of women should be in decision-making positions according to the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development.
The involvement of women in anti-war actions and in support of peace activism worldwide is a critical part of modern history, yet the vulnerability of women in conflict situations to violence of all forms is perhaps the most brutal manifestation of patriarchy in modern times. We must probe the areas of ambivalence in women’s activism for peace and human rights, argues Sunila Abeysekera.