The Ugandan government on Tuesday said the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) continued to hold thousands of abducted children and women, despite repeated pleas for their release from both the state and international organisations. "We keep reminding the LRA about the request over the issue and on numerous occasions we tell them face-to-face to release the children and women they hold hostage", Okello Oryem, junior foreign minister and deputy head of the government delegation to peace talks with the LRA in Southern Sudan, told reporters in Kampala.

HIV-positive Ugandan women are benefiting from a new crop of 'self-help' projects that are enabling them to support themselves and gain a foothold in the country's formal economy through a combination of affordable loans and small business ventures. The members of one such project, Bead for Life create jewellery out of papier-mâché beads, which is sold both locally and in the United States. Previously, many of them had struggled to buy food and pay hospital bills.

This course is designed to equip you with the practical skills and tools for successfully asserting yourself in all areas of your job function, from meetings, negotiations and conflict resolution to negotiating the minefield of corporate politics. A Practical, 2-Day Management Development Course For Women to be held
June 11 - 12, 2007 in Glen Hove Conferencing, Houghton, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Southern Africa is finalising consultations on a draft protocol to promote gender equality that will be tabled at a summit of regional leaders in August. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Gender and Development, currently being developed, will assist in speeding up the process of achieving gender equality, equity and improve the status of women in the region.

Four Women PeaceMakers are selected each year to spend two months in residence here at the Institute, at no cost to them, where they have their unique peacemaking stories documented through both film and writing, have the opportunity to engage with the community through a series of public panels and to meet with local and national leaders involved in human rights, political action and peacemaking efforts. Deadline: 1 June 2007

The International Journal of Transitional Justice invites submissions for an upcoming thematic issue on 'Gender and Transitional Justice'.

The Solidarity for African Women’s Rights (SOAWR) has released a quarterly update on the campaign on the Popularization, Ratification, Domestication and Implementation of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa.

The protocol entered into force on 25 November 2005, 30 days after the 15th ratification by Togo on 26 October 2005. As at March 2007, 43 countries had signed the protocol and 20 had ratified it. The number of ratifications shows a minimal improvement from the same time last year. Despite the tremendous work that has been done by the numerous rights groups across the continent, advocating for the rights of women, there still remain obstacles to their achievement. The report clearly demonstrates that whereas the ratification of the protocol as an all encompassing and legally binding document is paramount, there are many fronts on which the battle for the equal rights for women must continue to be fought. In the first quarter of the year, several countries and themes have come under the spotlight.

The continuing civil strife on several fronts across the continent has exacerbated the lot of women and children, leaving them even more open to exploitation and abuse. Furthermore, the absence of legitimate governing structures has precluded the possibility for legislative moves towards the ratification and implementation of the Protocol. Even in relatively stable countries there has been the usual reticence to ratify the protocol. In countries like Ethiopia, for instance, the view of the government has been that those self-same rights and principles are already enshrined in the social contract.

This however, has not prevented the continued abuse of women. Female genital mutilation has been in the spotlight and there is growing condemnation of the practice that remains a deeply rooted cultural practice in many countries. Other fronts in the effort are greater political participation, strengthening of legislation to protect women from abuse, and training in gender equality at all level of government
Other countries have raised legal reservations to elements in the Protocol and, to their great credit, civil society groups have actively engaged with governments to free these bottle-necks, with promising results thus far.

Since the beginning of the year there have been several fora at which the protocol has been actively promoted by groups such as SOAWR. Among these are the World Social Forum, the Sub-regional Workshop for North Africa, the Conference on Domestic Violence, the African Civil Society Forum and the Conference on the Status of Women.

Whereas progress has been encouraging thus far, it is clear that the impetus must not be lost in the ratification of the protocol, without which there lacks a comprehensive and all-inclusive legal framework within which the campaign for gender equality can operate in Africa.

Esselen Street Clinic, in Johannesburg's edgy, bustling inner-city suburb of Hillbrow, houses the only health centre in Johannesburg offering medical care aimed at sex workers. Business is brisk: at 8am the first clients are waiting outside the door of nurse Tryphina Matsena, who dispenses treatment for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

The sexual offences bill recently tabled at the Mauritian parliament brought much heated debate from both sides of the house, as well as protests from religious leaders and professionals. The bill could also decriminalise consensual anal sex. Amid the outcry, the speaker has tasked a select committee to look into the bill in detail.

While there are now roughly equal numbers of women and men in South African newsrooms, women, and especially black women, are still scarce in senior and top management echelons, as well as in the hard news beats. On average, women earn 20 per cent less than men in newsrooms; and black women earn 25 per cent less than white men.

According to the National Working Group on Sexual Offences, a group of 25 organisations including Childline, the Teddy Bear Clinic, People Opposing Women Abuse and the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre, rape survivors are not getting the health care they need. To make matters worse, teenage girls who are raped are often scolded or branded liars by health workers attending to them, while men, gays and lesbians and sex workers who have been raped are also discriminated against.

As activists focused on the challenges facing workers this May Day - 1 May 2007, Martha Moside, in an interview, called for attention to be paid to the situation of female subsistence farmers in South Africa. Many encounter difficulties gaining access to markets, securing bank loans and retaining reliable workers to assist them.

Somalia is the world's most dangerous country for minority communities and has overtaken Iraq to top a global ranking of countries where minorities are most under threat, Minority Rights Group International (MRG) says in a new global survey. Fierce fighting and the threat of state repression have seen Somalia, Iraq and Sudan lead this year's ranking of 'Peoples under Threat', which is a major feature of MRG's annual 'State of the World's Minorities' report. Last year Iraq led the list and Somalia was in third place.

Women’s rights activists in Uganda have petitioned the constitutional court demanding that female genital mutilation (FGM), practised by several communities in the east of the country, be declared illegal.

As part of its Knowledge Building and Mentoring Programme, the Conflict, Security and Development Group at King’s College London, is pleased to announce a call for applications for the Peace and Security Fellowships for African Women for 2007/2008. The deadline for applications is 29 May 2007.

In the summer of 1994, against the backdrop of the Rwandan genocide and the deterioration of conditions in Somalia, one of the few hopeful developments on the African continent came from the Zambian capital of Lusaka, where Angolans from the Government and the rebel UNITA movement and international mediators were working to end two decades of civil war that had killed 500,000 people. This article by Donald Steinberg examines the importance of including women in peace building.

Blogs for African Women (BAWo) has taken hold of the Nigerian blogging spirit to strengthen women's activism. Oreoluwa Somolu, BAWo's founder, sees blogging as a way to get women 'hooked on technology', and gain important skills for community and NGO leadership at the same time. Networking for Success, BAWo's second initiative getting women into the blogosphere, has just been awarded an Harambee small grant to increase BAWo's collaboration capacity.

"GBV Offices" reads a small sign on a door of the Rwandan National Police Headquarters. These three letters hold great significance, designating the Gender Based Violence Desk Office, where police personnel are specifically trained to address sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV).

"A government without true representation of women is incomplete, undemocratic and unaccountable," stressed Dr. Jacinta Muteshi, Chair of the Kenyan National Commission on Gender and Development. She was speaking at the High-Level Seminar on Gender and Transformational Leadership in Politics: Re-Positioning Women's Agenda for Effective Participation in Elective Politics in 2007, held on 20 April 2007 in Nairobi.

Kadidiatou Korsaga, director of Burkina Faso’s department for girls’ education promotion, despairs when asked about the recent case of a 15-year-old girl kidnapped from her school classroom and dragged off for an arranged marriage with an older man.