Source: Daily Trust
Former Head of State, Retired General Yakubu Gowon in collaboration with the TY Danjuma Foundation have donated 800 pairs of school sandals for distribution to female pupils to encourage more female children to go to school.
Somalia’s warring parties have all failed to protect Somali children from the fighting or serving in their forces, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The Islamist insurgent group al-Shabaab has increasingly targeted children for recruitment, forced marriage, and rape, and attacked teachers and schools, Human Rights Watch said.
World attention is on the war-torn Horn of Africa nation once more, with analysts saying the London Conference on 23 February could mark a turning point in the country's quest for peace and stability.
Source: The Herald
THE World Health Organisation has recommended that women continue using hormonal contraceptives in spite of revelations that their use doubles chances of uninfected women acquiring HIV.
Source: Tanzania Daily News
A popular Kiswahili proverb known by many Zanzibarians goes like this "Haba na haba hujaza kibaba" in other words drop by drop the vessel will get filled.
Source: Daily Nation
Kenyan political parties routinely flout their own policies and manifestos on gender representation.
Source: OSISA
In a landmark case starting on February 22nd, the Lesotho Constitutional Court will consider the constitutionality of section 10 of the Chieftainship Act, which arguably denies women the right to succeed to chieftainship solely on the basis of their gender.
Source: Nairobi Star
Special Programmes minister Esther Murugi and Mathira MP Ephraim Maina have defended Nyeri women over the reports of husband battery.
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.