THE year gone by, 2011, was a year marked by people's protest movements across the world --- a year of agitations and struggles. It started with the eruption of mass protests in the Arab world. On January 14, Tunisia led the way, followed by Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world. In Egypt, 18 days of angry protests at Tahrir Square brought an end to the 30 years long autocratic rule by Hosni Mubarak.
As current staff members at Our Bodies Ourselves (OBOS), an organization that has advanced the health and human rights of women and girls over four decades, and longtime reproductive justice activists, we continue to hope that safe and affordable abortion care will, someday, become a reality for everyone. With increasing attacks and restrictions on abortion access worldwide, we have our work cut out.
Gender stereotypes disadvantage women in many ways. A book by Rebecca J. Cook and Simone Cusack examines these stereotypes from a legal perspective and argues for a transnational legal approach to dismantling them.
Source: Angola Press
A two-day training on business undertakings started on Thursday in Cabinda City, in a promotion of the ruling MPLA party's female wing (OMA), in partnership with the provincial Secretariat of Business and Private Investment Support, ANGOP has learnt.
Source: The Herald
Seated on the edge of the bed, Sarudzai smiled faintly looking luminously grateful at her husband. "I could have died if it were not for you," said Sarudzai, leaning her head sideways and holding back tears in her eyes.
In my previous post, I created a series of maps on the treatment and economic opportunity offered to women around the world. Today, I look at the connection between women's economic opportunity and economic development.
Last September a striking story stole the headlines of newspapers and media outlets all across Ghana. Samia Nkrumah, the daughter of the nation's founding father, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, became the first female chairperson of a political party in the country's history as an independent state.
Source: The Standard
FIFTY-YEAR-old Anna Nyoni's married life has been a nightmare.
Voters often regard politicians with derision — so often, in fact, they may lose sight of the extent to which elected officials are role models for younger people. Indeed, new evidence suggests that when those politicians are female, they play a highly influential and positive role in the lives of young women.
Source: The Standard
WOMEN and Aids Support Network (Wasn) says it has unearthed several unreported rape cases of the disabled and young girls during an ongoing awareness campaign on sexual and reproductive health, which the organisation is conducting throughout the country.
Source: The Standard
A recent report: Baseline Study Report on the perceptions of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Mbare, Harare, Zimbabwe by Medicines Sans Frontiers and the University of Zimbabwe, says lack of transparency and gaps within the judiciary system allows perpetrators to escape retribution.
The African Union (AU) has unveiled an ambitious wish-list of priorities for Africa that would give the continent a stronger global voice, boost democracy and encourage peace and security.
Source: AllAfrica.com
Twenty years after the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the promise of sustainable development will be revisited again at the 2012 Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development next June.
Source: RH Reality Check
African countries are too often lumped together as one big composite of grave statistics and chronic epidemics. Because of this, it’s especially important that the global development and reproductive health communities recognize and amplify those success stories that can be told. Especially when these stories are designed and driven by local efforts.
Source: Sudan Tribune
Of nearly 2,000 pupils taking their final primary school exams in Rumbek the capital of Lakes State this week, only 16% are female according to the Director of Examinations in the state ministry of education Marial Manesa Makoi.
Source: The New Times
The number of mothers giving birth safely, especially at health centres in Rusizi District, dramatically increased from below 50 percent to 84 percent last year, statistics from Gihundwe Hospital confirm.
Source: Times of Zambia
ZAMBIA Police Service Victim Support Unit (VSU) national coordinator Tresford Kasale has said Gender-Based-Violence (GBV) cases in the country have continued to rise.
Mr Kasale said in an interview in Lusaka yesterday that GBV cases were on the upswing in the country, mostly in high density areas.
Quotas for women seem to be the hot thing in the Middle East these days. Libya just announced a 10 percent quota for women in its new election law. Tunisia used a form of quotas to enhance women's participation in its recent election.
Enduring structural improvements in human rights are very difficult to achieve. Global indices suggest that the world is little different today from a decade ago. In 2002, Freedom House, a non-governmental organization in the United States, recorded that 85 states were “free”, 59 were “partly free” and 48 were “not free”.
At the APEC Summit this past September, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton argued that women are a great untapped economic resource. "There is a stimulative and ripple effect that kicks in when women have greater access to jobs and the economic lives of our countries," she told the delegates there.