Source: Champion Newspaper
Recently, precisely February 6, 2012, the International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) was celebrated, during which the UNFPA executive director, Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, announced some encouraging findings in the abandonment of the practice. ROSE MOSES, in this report, takes a look at the harmful practice that endangers the health of young women and girls, especially in Africa
"Women are still largely shut out of the negotiations that seek to end conflicts." Women and girls living in conflict areas are frequently the targets of specific forms of violence and abuse. Thus women have a unique perspective on the causes and effects of conflict on the population. Yet they are severely under-represented during efforts to resolve hostilities and address their root causes.
A UN body of independent experts today urged the Government of Morocco to further consolidate and advance the country's decade-long achievements on equality and women's human rights by establishing without delay the Authority for Parity in accordance with international standards.
Women entrepreneurs in Nigeria would soon start accessing facilities from deposit money banks at single digit interest rate, the Central Bank governor Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has said.
Ambassador Anwarul Karim Chowdhury led Thursday’s provost lecture at the Wang Center as he discussed United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women and Peace & Security, a plan that aims to implement the active participation of women in political decision-making internationally.
In the early and middle decades of the twentieth century it was always Middle Eastern dictators who embarked on policy and legislation which liberated and empowered women in both family and society. The dictators liberated women in the good days, but retreated under pressure, and it was the populists ushered in by ‘democracy’ who oppressed women.
It’s not an individualist but a collective feminism that we need, one that measures success not by how high a woman can climb, but by the condition in which most women remain, says Shereen Essof.
Regardless of whether one is talking of the first world or the third, there is one constant when it comes to women: they remain under-represented in many important economic and political positions. The position has improved over the years, but it is still nowhere near parity with men. Does this matter? Does female leadership (or the lack thereof) have any implications for public policy outcomes?
A growing list of U.N. Security Council Resolutions acknowledges the importance of gender in processes for peace. Resolutions 1325, 1820, 1888, 1889 and 1960 note that women continue to be marginalised in peace negotiations and their potential is not fully utilised in humanitarian planning, peacekeeping operations, peace building, governance and reconstruction.
A record 1,500 migrants, mainly from Somalia and other parts of Africa, died trying to reach European shores in 2011 and the deadly odyssey continues from Libya, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday.
We have all seen how politicians behave in public rallies. They are voluble, intimidating and are prone to pick and spread propaganda like bush fire.
As the body count rises from the conflict between members of the separatist Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC) and the Senegalese army, Casamancais are starting to lose hope that they will ever see a path to peace.
Hundreds of villagers and town residents of Liberia’s Grand Cape Mount Country have attracted nationwide attention in their bid to recover what they say is land seized from them and turned over to a Malaysian agro-industrial concern.
UN Women Executive Director Michelle Bachelet has joined a prestigious reference group for a new research project on the economic benefits of investing in women’s health.
Source: Mozambique News Agency (AIM)
The Catalan Development Cooperation Agency is to disburse 60,000 euros (about 78,000 US dollars) to finance activities contained in Mozambique's National Action Plan for the Advancement of Women, for the period 210-2014.
Source: Namibian
THE Swapo Party Women's Council (SPWC) will throw its weight behind a female candidate, should a woman within the ruling party be nominated for any top-four position at the upcoming congress of the party.
Source: PlusNews
Four months after a study suggested women on hormonal contraception may be at an increased HIV risk, the World Health Organization (WHO) has reaffirmed the birth control method's safety, but strongly recommends that women on progesterone-only injections, like Depo-Provera, also use condoms to prevent HIV infection.
Source: Sowetan
Justice Minister Jeff Radebe signed a memorandum of understanding at the court, pledging that the justice system would support efforts to curb violence against women and children
Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) is a traditional practice that ranges from nicking to total removal of the external female genitalia. An estimated 100 to 145 million women have undergone this procedure and at least 3 million girls are at risk of being cut each year, about 8,000 girls a day.
The young man from Sudan holds his arms close to his sides, as if still at the mercy of smugglers who he says poured hot melted plastic over his back, whipped him with wires and beat him with sticks as he lay face down and naked. He pulls up his shirt to reveal scars that crisscross his arms, back and stomach.