South African NGOs involved in gender violence issues are to launch a week-long campaign in Johannesburg on Monday to create public awareness around the Sexual Offences Bill, currently before parliament. "Since the parliament is in session this month, the awareness campaign is also an attempt to lobby for the bill's enactment," Lisa Vetten of the Johannesburg-based Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation told IRIN.

A nationwide campaign to increase public awareness on the importance of breastfeeding began on Monday, with a workshop in Burundi's capital, Bujumbura. World Breastfeeding Week had taken place the week before. Medical workers and journalists attended the Bujumbura event, which was organised by the National Programme for Reproductive Health in conjunction with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).

The School Management Committee (SMC) of Akuapim basic schools has condemned the increasing rate at which parents allow school children to cart cocoa beans and food crops from one place to the other and tap palm wine instead of encouraging them to stay in school.

This distance learning course provides human rights activists with a range of proven human rights advocacy methods and critical concepts as a means for them to reflect on and deepen their own work. The course will look at the theoretical foundations and critical issues of human rights advocacy, elements of advocacy planning, and strategies for action.

The National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) has begun a rural outreach programme to campaign for a boycott of parliamentary elections set for March next year, the organisation has said. Earnest Mudzengi, the NCA information and advocacy officer told the Daily News Online that the coalition group wanted the public to boycott next year’s legislative polls unless the government made “meaningful” and sweeping changes to the constitution.

This paper is motivated by the observation that children in land-rich households are often more likely to be in work than the children of land-poor households. The vast majority of working children in developing countries are in agricultural work, predominantly on farms operated by their families. These facts challenge the common presumption that child labour emerges from the poorest households. This article suggests that this seeming paradox can be explained by failures of the markets for labour and land.

Online advocacy has been evolving into a comprehensive, systemic approach to growing membership, identifying prospective donors, developing donor relations, building communities, and mobilizing constituencies. Organizations increasingly integrate online and offline efforts, from culture jamming to facilitating gatherings and demonstrations. Now more than ever, a strong Internet presence is vital for small- to medium-sized nonprofits to meet their goals.

The Communication Rights in the Information Society has called for support to its campaign for democratising media, disseminating knowledge, ensuring civil rights in the information society and making ICTs affordable. For more information on the campaign click on the URL provided.

The Lesbian and Gay Equality Project (“the Equality Project”) announced earlier this month that it and eighteen other applicants have filed an application in the Johannesburg High Court challenging the laws that prevent two people of the same sex from entering into a legally recognised marriage. In effect, these laws prohibit lesbian and gay people from exercising the fundamental human right of the freedom to determine a spouse of choice.

This report sets out to gain an overview of existing knowledge of child labour practices in the Malawi tea sector and to explore the needs and priorities for further research. The findings of the paper include:
* There is clear evidence that child labour does exist in the tea sector in Malawi, contrary to the opinion of the Tea Association of Malawi and the most dominant tea sector owner in Malawi.
* The problem of child labour should not be isolated from other general problems facing workers in the tea industry, namely, the very poor working conditions.

Impact for Change and Development, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) took the campaign against child labour to the streets of Abuja recently to drum up support for the eradication of the menace. The campaign, which was staged in a rally made up of civil servants, representatives of United nations Organisations, school children and other distinguished Nigerians was geared towards creating awareness on the ills of using under aged children for domestic labour.

This paper argues that studies of the relationship between child labour and poverty, in which poverty is measured by contemporaneous household income, underestimate the extent to which poor households use children’s labour as a risk diversification strategy, smoothing household income over time. The paper suggests that this is particularly likely in environments where markets to insure against risk are thin or absent.

Health officials began a drive to vaccinate the population of Bobo Dioulasso against yellow fever at the weekend after four cases of the disease were confirmed in Burkina Faso's second largest city earlier this year. Officials said the vaccination campaign kicked off on Saturday. It was expected to last five days and cover about 840,000 people in and around the city, they added.

The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) is calling for international pressure on the Nigerian government to withdraw a draft anti-union law, which would, amongst other things, deregister the ICFTU-affiliated Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the main national trade union centre in the country. The proposed law would also impose severe restrictions on the right to strike. The 4 million-member NLC is apparently being targeted following its repeated calls for fair prices of petroleum products. Despite being a major world oil producer, the price of these products is spiralling beyond the means of many Nigerians.

The latest evidence from Darfur, western Sudan, reveals a population in crisis. An estimated one million people have been forced to flee their homes. More than 10,000 have been killed. Human rights violations are being carried out on a massive scale by the Janjawid, a government-backed militia, which often operates alongside government troops. You can take action through an Amnesty International office in your country, or you can write directly to Lieutenant-General Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, President of Sudan. Visit the Amnesty web site for more information.

The Global Campaign for Education is an independent coalition of NGOs and trade unions campaigning for the right to free, good quality education and immediate action on the Education for All goals. Their email bulletin is produced as an information resource for activists and practitioners. To subscribe, send a message with the word 'subscribe' in the subject line to:
[email][email protected]

The South African Centre of International PEN and New Africa Books intend to publish a series of annual volumes of new creative writing by writers living in South Africa and in other SADC countries. They wish to encourage young writers to express the vitality and diversity of our Southern African society through lively literature for a global audience. For the first book, New Writing from Southern Africa 2005 they seek contributions in the form of short stories only. These must be written in English.

Centre for Domestic Violence Prevention (CEDOVIP)

The position holder will be responsible, amongst other duties, for the development and implementation of all advocacy activities and for the raising of awareness within the stakeholder community of human rights and domestic violence.

Information is power! The written word can persuade, assuage, motivate, subvert and change how we view the world. Anyone disseminating information needs to do so with integrity, accountability and responsibility. Zimbabweans have little or no access to objective journalism. But responsibility doesn't only rest with our journalists. Many people don't realise the power they wield with their email, their SMS messages, and their ordinary everyday conversations during which information can be manipulated or distorted.

On 1 July 2004, the Coalition for the International Criminal Court and Amnesty International launched a website action calling on the government of Cape Verde to ratify the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court, as part of a campaign to lobby for the universal ratification of the Rome Statute. To find out more information about the campaign please visit the website of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court (www.iccnow.org) and the website of Amnesty International (http://web.amnesty.org/pages/icc-010704-action-eng).