Archive for the 'Africa' Category
On International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, Nicole Johnston reports on the formidable Women’s Forum not accepting the status quo in Malawi.
As the world’s decision makers embark on the road to Copenhagen, the oft-repeated refrain is that climate change will hit Africa “first and worst”. What we don’t hear enough about is [...]
U.S. President Barack Obama honored a group of women on Monday who have confronted Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and said they had defied a dictator.
“They often don’t get far before being confronted by President Mugabe’s riot police,” Obama said at a ceremony for Magodonga Mahlangu and the organization she helps lead — WOZA, which stands [...]
A Zambian newspaper editor was acquitted Monday on charges of distributing obscene materials with the intent of corrupting public morals, a case filed against her after she sent photos of a woman in childbirth to government officials and other prominent figures.
Many media advocates in Zambia and throughout the world considered the arrest of Chansa Kabwela, [...]
It is one of the world’s oldest professions, dating so far back that it is even mentioned in the Bible. But in the deeply cultural and religious country of Swaziland, Senator Thuli Msane stirred a hornet’s nest when she publicly challenged a new strict bill opposing prostitution.
Msane spoke out against arresting sex workers, when she [...]
* Rape victims lost vital services after expulsions says UN
* Sudan denies rape widespread in Darfur
Rape victims in Sudan’s Darfur region have lost vital medical and psychological support since Khartoum expelled aid agencies working against sexual violence this year, the United Nations and aid workers said.
A Sudanese minister dismissed the reports as “propaganda” saying there [...]
The moral imperative to end this brutal practice exists – now we need the leadership and political will to consign it to history
In countries all over the world today, women live with the threat, or consequences, of female genital mutilation.
In Africa alone an estimated 3 million girls and women are subjected to the practice each [...]
More than half of Ugandan girls who enrol in grade one drop out before sitting for their primary school-leaving examinations.
The fact that girls are dropping out between age 11 and 13 is being linked to the beginning of the menstruation cycle and its associated challenges.
Research conducted by a non-government organisation, the Forum of African Women [...]
Somalia’s hardline al Shabaab insurgents closed three grassroots women’s organisations in the rebel-held town of Balad Hawa on Monday to stop women from going to work, a rebel leader said.
The group wants to impose its own version of Islamic law on areas it controls, and Washington says it is al Qaeda’s proxy in the Horn [...]
A single clinic in the capital, Harare, says it has treated nearly 30,000 girls and boys who were abused in the past four years ‑ an average of 20 per day. Experts believe that the country’s economic collapse under Robert Mugabe has led to widespread family breakdown and left many children vulnerable.
Dr Robert-Grey Choto, a [...]
While medical and psychological care are being provided to survivors of sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where 7,000 women and girls have been raped this year alone, UN and aid workers on the ground say the funding response has been too narrow, leaving key issues inadequately addressed.
“Increased international attention to sexual violence [...]
A countrywide survey of the incidence of rape in Cameroon has returned disturbing statistics: 20 percent of the nearly 38,000 women surveyed reported having been raped; another 14 percent said they had escaped a rape attempt.
Echoing findings elsewhere in the world, the survey, carried out in all ten of Cameroon’s regions by the German Technical [...]
Over the past few years, health workers in Malawi have noticed an unforeseen consequence of the availability of free antiretrovirals: more rape victims are showing up in hospitals.
Since 2005, when the Global Fund began providing AIDS drugs to the country, word has been spreading that Post Exposure Prophylaxis, a 30-day preventative combination of the medication, [...]
Somalia’s hardline Islamist group al Shabaab has publicly whipped women for wearing bras they say violate Islam by constituting a deception, north Mogadishu residents said last week.
The insurgent group, which seeks to impose a strict form of sharia Islamic law throughout Somalia, amputated a foot and a hand each from two young men accused of [...]
* Humanitarian workers call for accountability for crimes
* 110,000 return to homes in volatile Rwanda border zone
* Concerns about cross-border expulsions in Angola, Congo
Some 5,400 women have reported being raped this year in one province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations said last week.
Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the [...]
At an 8 October gathering of Guinean women beaten or raped during the recent military attack on demonstrators, all wept as one young woman presented torn clothes soldiers had ripped off of her.
“We all collapsed in tears. It is unspeakably painful what happened here in Guinea,” Aïssata Daffe of the Union des Forces Républicaines political [...]
Calls are growing for South Africa to legalise prostitution ahead of next year’s football World Cup in an effort to limit HIV infection among millions of fans visiting the country for the tournament.
A leading health specialist told the Observer that the World Cup presented a huge risk and said there was an urgent need to [...]
Darfuri refugee women and girls face high levels of rape and other violence on a daily basis both inside and outside refugee camps in eastern Chad, despite the presence of UN security forces, a new Amnesty International report reveals.
In ‘No place for us here: Violence against refugee women in eastern Chad’, Amnesty International documents [...]
In 2003, the African nation of Liberia was in turmoil; its president Charles Taylor was involved in a vicious civil war with war lords who wanted to take his place. Caught in the middle were innocent civilians who bore the brunt of the violence.
One woman, Leymah Gbowee, had had enough and she and her [...]
Rioters attacked and stripped about 20 Ugandan women who were wearing trousers last week during deadly riots in Kampala. The humiliations were part of a major confrontation between a traditional kingdom and President Yoweri Museveni’s government.
Male rioters in a suburb here on September 11 attacked about 20 women wearing trousers.
The men, in Rubaga, a Kampala [...]
Recent postings- 16 Days of Activism for the Elimination of Violence Against women – 25 November to 10 December
- Commit • Act • Demand: We CAN End Violence Against Women!
- 10th Anniversary Statement on the UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women
- UN expert calls for strengthened cooperation to intensify efforts to eliminate violence against women
- Denial of justice to rape survivors doomed to continue
- Knesset calls to get tough on domestic violence on eve of White Ribbon Day
- Women in Malawi: Holding up half the sky
- Obama honors WOZA (Women of Zimbabwe Arise) for defying a ‘dictator’
- IPS Gender Wire up to 10 November 2009
- Anti-child pornography law signed into law by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in the Philippines
- new on womensgrid
- Sat 28 November – Representations of Women in the Media – Bristol
- Women asked to strip… for feminism
- Video of National Women’s Liberation Conference 1970
- Did you take the Pill during the 60s? If so the BBC would like to hear from you
- UK Government must pay Northern Ireland’s annual 1 million pound bill for women forced into private abortions says fpa
- Response by Rape Crisis (England and Wales) to Rape: The Victim Experience Review
- Peer calls for radical steps to reduce rapes – Introduce free late-night transport for women and teach boys about consent
- Ruth Rendell supports fight against FGM (female genital mutilation)
- Campaign to raise awareness of femicide in Ireland
- Many women still left at risk of domestic violence says Director of Women’s Aid Ireland
- new on women in london
- Grunwick and Gate Gourmet Study Day at the Women’s Library
- Home Truths: The Social Impact of Domestic Violence – JWA – 25th November 2009
- Researcher – WRC – 7th December 2009
- 4 vacancies – Kiran – 2nd December 2009
- National Peripatetic Domestic Violence Workers – Refuge – 24 Nov 2009
- The Greatest Silence – special screening to mark 16 Days of Action – WAN – 3rd Dec 2009
- Consultation for organisations working in the field of violence against women and children
- New free legal advice clinic at Account3 in Tower Hamlets – first session 24 Nov 2009
- Children’s Rights Photography Competition – Alternative Arts – 14th December 2009
- Fawcett comments on new pay gap figures
Libya should drop charges against journalist who reported allegations of sexual harassment
28 October 2009 in Africa, Government, Media, Opinion Comment, Rape and Sexual Assault
The Libyan government should investigate allegations of sexual harassment in a state-run residence for women who had been orphaned instead of charging the journalist who reported the story with criminal defamation – Human Rights Watch
Mohamed al-Sareet, a Libyan journalist, wrote on Jeel Libya, an independent news website based in London, about a rare demonstration in [...]