The Leadership and Advocacy for Women in Africa (LAWA) Fellowship Program was founded in 1993 at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., in order to train women's human rights lawyers from Africa who are committed to returning home to their countries in order to advance the status of women and girls throughout their careers (see LAWA Goals). Over 50 women's human rights advocates from Botswana, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe have participated in the LAWA Program, and we hope to include Fellows from additional countries in the future. The application deadline for the 2008-2009 LAWA Fellowship Program is November 30, 2007.

The Darfur peace talks in Libya may have got off to a disappointing start with a boycott by key rebel factions. But activist Safaa Elagib Adam made sure she was there to push for better representation for women from the outset. As a veteran of the last round of talks in Abuja, the secretary general and gender adviser of the Khartoum-based Community Development Association knows she faces an uphill struggle. She was one of only four women representing civil society last weekend in Libya, and says there were no women on either the government or the rebel delegations.

Gay rights activists in Uganda have come together to create a Chapter of the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) and take part in a landmark debate organised by Queer Youth Uganda. The climate for LGBT people in the country is extremely hostile, and attacks from the media, religious groups and the government are commonplace. Despite this, more than 100 activists and supporters gathered in the capital Kampala to debate the way forward for gay rights in Uganda.

Following the launch of the groundbreaking Yogyakarta Principles earlier this year, the United Nations will be hosting a panel discussion next month to explore discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The event, which will bring together non-governmental organisations, UN representatives and state delegates, is an initiative co-sponsored by Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.

The aim of this course is to explore and discuss various ways of articulating and affirming the voice as a powerful agency of social change. The registration deadline is December 15, 2007. All applicants shall receive notice of admission results by February 10, 2008.

The Association for Women's Rights in Development is an international membership organisation that works to strengthen the voice, impact and influence of women's rights advocates, organizations and movements internationally to effectively advance the rights of women. From November 14-17, 2008, up to 1,500 women's rights leaders and activists from around the world will converge on Cape Town, South Africa at the 11th AWID International Forum to discuss the power of movements.

On February 22, 2007, the Ghanaian Parliament passed the long awaited Domestic Violence Act (DV Act). Although the original bill specifically prohibited marital rape, parliament bowed to public pressure and removed the provision, leaving husbands free to rape their wives with impunity. Marital rape constitutes a violation of women's human rights. The Ghanaian parliament should act immediately to expressly make marital rape a crime, writes Nancy Kaymar Stafford in this forthcoming publication.

Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP) is a non Governmental Advocacy Organization which promotes gender equality and equity principles, women’s empowerment and social transformation within Tanzania and beyond. Begun in 1993, TGNP has adopted the following strategies: participatory methodology and animation; networking coalition building and outreach, policy analysis and advocacy; action-oriented participatory research and collective action; scholarly analysis, media engagement and popular literature; and capacity building and training.

It is one of the greatest misfortunes that can befall a woman at any point in her life - to loose her husband. No matter the length of time she spent with him in matrimony, the grief and sorrow she experiences cannot be quantified.

As closer attention is paid to the lives of adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa, girls are found to be clearly disadvantaged, compared with their male counterparts. In Burkina Faso 74 percent of girls aged 15-19 cannot read (INSD and ORC Macro 2004).

A five-year Gender Equity through Education Programme has been launched in the Southern Sudanese capital of Juba. Launched by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in cooperation with the South Sudan government, a total of US $6.5 million has been earmarked for the programme.

Three weeks ago, 35-year-old Waldo Bester was found stabbed to death in Vredenburg, north of Cape Town. Although details of this gay man’s attack are unclear at present, the fact remains that he was murdered brutally in what is believed to be hate crime according to Cape Town’s Triangle Project – which is long standing gay organisation in the Western Cape Province.

Gender differentials in health related risks and outcomes are partly determined by biological sex differences. Yet they are also the result of how societies socialise women and men into gender roles. This paper published by the Women and Gender Equity Knowledge Network draws together evidence that identifies and explains what gender inequality and inequity mean in terms of differential exposures and vulnerabilities for women versus men, and also how health care systems and health research reproduce these inequalities and inequities instead of resolving them.

When the two buses from Mogadishu finally reached Galkayo, everyone aboard felt relieved even though the road had been paved with militiamen robbing passengers at gunpoint and five women had been raped. Once in Galkayo, the second largest city in Puntland in north-eastern Somalia, the women joined the belt of settlements sheltering displaced families that has grown around this city due to a recurrent civil conflict over the past 17 years.

Money from the Presidential Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is funding organisations in Uganda that actively promote homophobia, a leading human rights charity has warned. In a letter to the Mark Dybul, US Global AIDS Coordinator, Human Rights Watch, expressed grave concern about “an expanding pattern of attacks in Uganda upon the human rights of lesbian, gay and transgender people”, and highlighted the homophobic activities of Pastor Martin Ssempa, a member of the First lady’s of Uganda’s Task Force on AIDS and recipient of PEPFAR prevention HIV prevention money.

Not having enough food is associated with a higher frequency of multiple high-risk sexual behaviours among women in Botswana and Swaziland, a study published in the October edition of PLoS Medicine has found. Women who reported food insecurity in the previous year had an 80% increase in their likelihood of transaction sex, a 70% increase in their risk of reporting unprotected sex with a non-primary partner, and a 50% increase in their likelihood of intergenerational sex.

Strong new pledges of commitment to invest in women’s health came from donors, government officials, corporations, foundations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) at closing sessions of the landmark Women Deliver Conference, which sought to mobilize political will and investment to reduce pregnancy-related deaths and disabilities worldwide. More than 1,800 participants from 109 countries cheered a final statement from the 70 cabinet ministers and parliamentarians present, who pledged to make achievement of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) number 5 (improve maternal health) “a high priority on the national, regional and international health agenda”.

None on Record: Stories of Queer Africa Edited by: Notisha Massaquoi & Selly Thiam WE are collecting stories of Africans from the continent and within the diasporic communities that identify as queer, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (QLGBT).

Around half a million women die annually before, during or shortly after giving birth - and almost all of these deaths occur in developing countries. Campaigners argue that these deaths are both preventable and have repercussions that echo far beyond the woman's immediate family and community.

Moroccan Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi's newly-announced government includes a record number of female ministers. A total of seven will lead ministries ranging from energy to culture, compared with only two in the previous government.