Some young women have, unknowingly and forcibly, been sterilised because of their HIV status, New Era has learnt. At a workshop in Windhoek last month, which brought together 30 young women living with HIV, three participants from the Khomas, Karas and Oshikoto regions said they were forcibly sterilised. New Era spoke to two of the women who chose to remain anonymous for fear of stigmatisation. A 25-year-old Khomas woman was sterilised without her consent on October 15, 2003 at Windhoek Central Hospital after giving birth by Caesarian section.

This course is designed to prompt an exploration of common behaviours and attitudes towards gender differences. It will present facts and figures about the situation of women and men in our society today ? and references from key documents that highlight policies formulated to address gender concerns. Recent events have shown that if governments are serious about achieving the Millennium Development Goals, MDG’s, it is essential that gender be taken into account for all the goals. Deadline for applications: February 14th, 2008

On 1st February 2008, as its 40th session came to an end, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) adopted its concluding observations, having examined the combined second, third and fourth periodic report of Burundi regarding the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

In a recent publication, a member of the Nigerian Senate and Committee Chairperson on Women and Youth, Senator Eme Ufot Ekaette, admitted that she has presented to the National Assembly for discussion and eventual ratification into law a Bill against indecent dressing in the country. She spoke to the press recently noting that indecent dressing amongst Nigerians has continued to promote all manner of vices in the society. She claims that the Bill she is proposing will address issues of indecency and immorality and that she aims for the preservation of cultural norms and values.

UNHCR's Policy Development and Evaluation Service (PDES) has commissioned an independent evaluation of the organization's role in preventing and responding to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in situations of forced displacement. In order to ensure that the evaluation has a global focus, and to ensure that all stakeholders have an opportunity to contribute to this evaluation, PDES is inviting all interested parties, including NGOs, human rights organizations and independent researchers, to make written and confidential submissions to Health Focus, providing their perspective and experience in relation to UNHCR's performance in preventing and responding to SGBV.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/broadcasts/AFRIKAJUSTICE-AFRIKANFLAG.jp… this series of interviews, Rwanda's Contact FM radio talks to activists in south Kivu fighting for justice for the women of Congo.
Christine Schuler Descrivers works closely with Panzi hospital in Bukavu and a leading campaigner against the sexual terrorism of women.
Dr. Denis Mukwege is chief gyneacologist at Bukavu’s Panzi hospital and a specialist in reparative surgery for women mutilated by sexual terrorism.

* Venancie Bisimanabintou is executive secretary of the womens’ network for the defence of human rights and peace also based in Bukavu.

* Picture: Rehdda Jahnaitka

Many thought her bravado was pure madness, that unknown young woman on the television screen. “Why do we have to keep on being tear-gassed because of you? We want to work!” She screamed at the leaders of the opposition party outside Nairobi’s Stanley Hotel as they prepared for a banned protest march against the disputed victory of the Mwai Kibaki’s presidency.

“Ask Kibaki!” William Ruto and Najib Balala retorted. “No! Don’t tell me about Kibaki! I am tired of being chased around. I want to go on with my life…”

“Ask Kibaki!” A crowd of men shoved the poor woman to the ground, and she had to run away, as they slapped and threw kicks at her. A few moments later, paramilitary police rendered the city of Nairobi un-inhabitable.

That moment symbolises the situation of our mothers, our sisters, of women in Kenya during these ethnic cleansing sanitised as “post election violence.”

“800 people dead, and over 250,000 people displaced in their own country” drone international news channels. Cold statistical figures that do not show how Kenyan women are suffering rapes, murders, lack of food for themselves and their family, and loss of property.

Kenyan women have been stoic despite patriarchal inhibitions of our society. They head families; they kick off their husbands from illicit brew dens, and hawk vegetables and foodstuffs to feed us. They vie for political posts despite the violence and intimidation. But now, they are the envelopes upon which messages of hate are delivered to enemy camps.

How else can you explain 1 January 2008? Location: Kenya Assemblies of God Church, Kiambaa, Eldoret Town. Scene: a group of people runs into the church under attack from their neighbours, only to be locked in, and burnt alive. Fade out on charred remains of 35 people, mostly women and children, including the smoldering wheel chair of an ailing woman whose sons had taken here there in the hope of sheltering her from the violence.

It is neither a film, nor a reality television. It is real news.

As the violence entered the capital city guarded by hundreds of paramilitary police, the gender based violence that had characterised the pre-election period where women political leaders and voters suffered assault now exponentially spiraled out of control.

Nairobi Women’s Hospital issued an alert that the reported number of rapes had more than doubled, from an average of four rape cases per day to more than ten. News abounds of young girls, under the age of 18, to women over 70 years old, being gang raped as they flee conflict areas.

Most of the quarter a million displaced people lucky enough to flee have been hurdled in refugee camps in football fields, police stations, churches and schools. Reproductive health facilities here are not readily available, and for the pregnant women childbirth is a matter of life and death. The Rift Valley Provincial Hospital reported at least six women arriving there for delivery within the first week of the camp being set up.

Sanitary towels are not available. There is no money to buy from the surrounding shopping centres as the refugees have nothing. Leading supermarkets already post appeals for well-wishers to buy sanitary towels and deposit in special bins for donation to refugee camps.

Food has fast become an issue. The Red Cross is having problems reaching some refugee camps as rowdy youth barricade roads, and at one time even overwhelmed relief trucks and looted the food. Even when the food does get to the camp, the women and children have to wrestle and jostle in the queues.

In “safer” residential areas, women now fear to go out to buy food for fear of police and violent demonstrators. Towns like Nakuru and Naivasha towns are under a 7 p.m to 7 a.m curfew. Food prices have rocketed countrywide. Sukuma Wiki, a staple vegetable, now costs ten shillings a small bunch up from five shillings.

In the low-income housing estates of Nairobi’s Huruma and Mathare, women landlords went to collect rent from their tenants, only to be told by rival tribesmen that “the building now has its owners, we are the landlords.”

A pregnant woman was flung from the fifth floor of her own block to her death. As one of the women put it, “it’s unbelievable that there are people living in the comfort of my houses while I am a refugee being rained on in a Police Station’s yard.”

Tired of it all, some 200 women refugees evicted from Kibera slums decided to go back to their homes and appeal for peace across tribes. Just like the unknown young woman who dared stand up to the political leaders and ask if there is any justification to this violence and chaos, they too ask WHY Kenya has succumbed to this anarchy and breakdown of order.

However, Mr. Politicians do not want to hear them, or do not care. Women are invisible to the political class, but very visible to the aggressors seeking targets.

*Simiyu Barasa is a Kenyan filmmaker and writer. This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service that provides fresh views on everyday news.

**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/broadcasts/bunia-women-patrol.jpgIn this series of interviews, Rwanda’s Contact FM radio talks to women in north Kivu in the forefront of fighting what has been described as “femicide” in eastern DRC.
The recent peace conference in Goma, north Kivu has raised hopes that a durable solution to the almost decade long conflict in eastern DRC will finally be found. But Congolese women of DRC are paying a huge price as each bout of fighting results in ever more women raped and mutilated. Rape is being used as a weapon of war in what increasingly looks like a no win situation for all parties concerned and Congolese women are upping the ante in the fight to break the silence about the atrocities committed against them for too many years.

Unwanted or unplanned pregnancy is a significant risk for women with HIV within 18 months of starting antiretroviral therapy, and in Uganda few were being offered family planning methods in order to avoid pregnancy, researchers reported on Tuesday at the Fifteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston.

As tens of thousands of people flee the ongoing violence in Chad, concerns are being raised by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, for the health and safety of expectant mothers and their children. Thousands of refugees have streamed across the border between Chad and Cameroon to seek shelter from the fighting. UNFPA seeks to make motherhood as safe as possible during crisis situations by providing care before, during and after delivery and by helping those who want to delay or avoid pregnancy.

Women'sNet, a feminist NGO based in Johannesburg, which promotes the strategic use of ICTs for social action and women's empowerment is seeking to fill the position of Project Officer. the deadline for applications in 15 February 2008.

Women'sNet, a feminist NGO based in Johannesburg, which promotes the strategic use of ICTs for social action and women's empowerment is seeking to fill the position of Intern. the deadline for applications is 15 February 2008.

Police in Senegal have arrested several men following the publication of pictures claiming to depict a wedding ceremony between two men. The pictures were published in Icone magazine, whose editor, Mansour Dieng, has since received death threats. Mr Dieng has also been questioned by police over the issue. Homosexuality is illegal in Senegal but it is not clear whether the arrests were in connection with the ceremony or the death threats.

NGOs meeting in Johannesburg have challenged leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to put their money where their mouths are by adopting a binding protocol for promoting gender equality at their August summit. In a statement following a three day strategy meeting, members of the Southern African Gender Protocol Alliance[1] commended the recent move by senior officials responsible for gender to strengthen the draft SADC Protocol on Gender and Development that was watered down and then deferred at the 2007 Heads of State summit in Lusaka.

Democracies everywhere are undergoing transformation and redefinition in response to particular contemporary phenomena. These phenomena include the rise of global capitalism and the subsequent globalization of many aspect of culture; large scale migration or immigration; identity politics; the development of new, powerful supranational entities like the European Union; neo-liberal policy; and, in the case of Central and Eastern European countries, the dismantling of state socialism. This course specifically considers how these processes shape political and social belonging in democracies today in various ways. Application deadline: 14 March 2008.

In December 2007, the Moroccan court of justice sentenced six men to jail terms of between two and ten months for the crime of homosexuality. The men had been filmed participating in a mock wedding of two men in the northern town of Ksar el-Kebir. Moroccans saw the video on the internet: someone, and than many people, loaded what appeared to be low-quality mobile-phone videos of the ceremony onto You Tube.

A liberal African bishop, who has wrought havoc in his own diocese and the Province of Central Africa over his liberal views on homosexuality, told delegates to the 192nd annual meeting of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina in Greensboro, recently, that the majority of African Anglicans, about 37 million, are not bothered by the debate about sexuality.

The second anniversary that marks brutal murder of Zoliswa Nkonyane in Khayalitsha, Western Cape Province, met with a launch of ‘Call to Action’ by Western Cape Alliance for the 07-07-07-Campaign. ‘Call to Action’ is aimed at ending hate and gender-based violence. “We chose to launch the ‘Call to Action’ on the second anniversary of the brutal death of Zoliswa because nothing has been done on her case yet. The case is still pending”, attested Marlow Valentine of the Triangle Project, which is spearheading the campaign.

EASSI is an eleven year old sub-regional support initiative for women that boasts of having a hand in the implementation of Government commitments to women and girls’ advancement. This program targets women from the ages of 18 to 35 from any of the eight countries of the sub-region, Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda. Every year we target four women. In 2008, we specifically seek women from Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia and Tanzania.

We, members of the African Civil Society and Women’s Movement meeting under the aegis of “Gender is My Agenda Campaign” on the occasion of the 11th Pre-Summit Consultative Meeting held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 22nd to 23 rd January 2008, on the theme “ Industrial Development for Africa: The Gender Perspective ”, with the support of the Commission of the African Union (AUC), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the United Kingdom Department for International Development(DFID) and Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA);