As the international community marks World Refugee Day, a Somali woman's tale of how she helped fellow refugees terminate pregnancies has highlighted the shortcomings of reproductive health care in refugee camps. Humanitarian assistance to people in this and other camps has understandably focused on providing food, water, shelter and sanitation. In the scramble to ensure that refugees stay alive, however, the contraceptive needs of women sometimes fall by the wayside - despite the fact that women may be more vulnerable to sexual abuse and disease, and unwanted pregnancies, in a refugee setting.

Women for Change advocates for policies and practices that are gender-sensitive, just and effectively respond to the plight of the poor. WFC also creates public awareness on the rights of women and children and influences policy formulation and change on their development needs as well as on identification, planning and implementation of development programmes.

The Center for African Family Studies (CAFS), in collaboration with the World Health Organization Secretariat, Women's Health Project of the University of Witwatersrand and the Harvard School of Public Health, is offering a three-week course on gender and rights in reproductive health and HIV and AIDS. This will be held from 24 October to 11 November 2005 in Nairobi, Kenya. The course will highlight regional priorities and current controversies in relation to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and Beijing Programmes of Action,
particularly in the context of HIV and AIDS.

Topics to be covered include: the gender concept and reproductive health, gender analysis, gender policy approaches, gender mainstreaming in reproductive health and HIV and AIDS programmes, the social determinants of health, health systems analysis, sexual and reproductive rights, and gender and HIV and AIDS. The course is suitable for senior and middle-level managers, planners and policymakers from both the public and NGO sectors, who are directly responsible for influencing or making policy to implement
the MDGs and the Cairo and Beijing Programmes of Action. For further information, contact Centre for African Family Studies (CAFS), P.O. Box 60054, 00200 Nairobi, Kenya; tel.: 254-20-444 86 18, fax: 254-20-444 86 21 or e-mail: [email protected]

This background paper summarises the main issues around gender and poverty in southern Africa in the context of human development, health, education, and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It concludes with key issues to facilitate discussion. The paper includes regional reviews of the key elements in the challenge to eradicate poverty; achieve universal primary education; promote gender equality and empower women; reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; and combat HIV / AIDS, malaria and other diseases. The author also examines gender inequality in access to and control of assets, the necessity of engendering national budgets, and gender dimensions of health, HIV/AIDS, and education.

Anti-rape campaigners in South Africa are outraged about a new invention intended to catch rapists. The device, designed for a woman to insert, attaches itself to a rapist and has to be surgically removed. Its inventor says this will help in the prosecution of the rapist. Critics say the invention represents a return to the days of the chastity belt. Some 1.5 million rapes occur in South Africa each year - one of the highest rates in the world. "This is a medieval instrument, based on male-hating notions and fundamentally misunderstands the nature of rape and violence against women in this society," said Charlene Smith, one of South Africa's most prominent campaigners against rape.

This report explores the tensions between the role of trade, development and gender equality. The main conclusions are that gender considerations are intricately and practically linked with global trade, and that there exist fundamental tensions and dilemmas in the relationship between trade and economic development. The author argues that there are still many paradoxes even within development economics orthodoxies, including: apparent tensions between the norms, values and practice of trade and economic development; and, current patterns of trade (and trade rule-making) may present significant challenges for gender equality objectives, which, in turn, can have significant untoward effects for long-term development.

The workshop will present the reasons behind the abstention of women in Egypt, especially the abstention of rural women from participating in the political life. The workshop agenda will include identifying the different sides of the political and social participation to deepen the understanding of the political participation issues, especially for women.

In the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a Rwandan militia group, the FDLR (Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda), may finally be ready to lay down their arms and return in peace to Rwanda. But as the return process begins to be negotiated and organized, MONUC, the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC, the government of Rwanda and other implementing agencies are not paying adequate attention to the needs of FDLR dependents, leaving at least 40,000 women and children potentially vulnerable.

All countries have rapes, of course. But here in the refugee shantytowns of Darfur, the horrific stories that young women whisper are not of random criminality but of a systematic campaign of rape to terrorize civilians and drive them from "Arab lands" - a policy of rape. One measure of the international community's hypocrisy is that the world is barely bothering to protest. More than two years after the genocide in Darfur began, the women of Kalma Camp - a teeming squatter's camp of 110,000 people driven from their burned villages - still face the risk of gang rape every single day as they go out looking for firewood.

The Deputy Executive Secretary of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Dr. Remi Artificial, has raised the question of why women were still being excluded from the much-coveted position of Head of State and government. She noted, however that there was a higher level of political representatives of women in parliament and other public offices. The ECOWAS deputy chief scribe made the remarks recently in Abuja, Nigeria, at a Conference on "Human Development and Growth; A Strategic Approach" organized by the Better Life Program for the African Rural Women, founded by Nigeria's former First Lady Mariam Babanginda.

Our aim is to build knowledge about the relationship between women, development and ICT-based enterprises. These enterprises represent new mechanisms for wealth and skill creation. They include work such as data entry, programming, Web design, hardware assembly, ICT training, ICT consultancy, and other productive activities where ICTs are fundamental to the enterprise.

You will be working in close cooperation with the Central and Horn of Africa Project teams to examine the roles played by women in war and its aftermath including their contributions as peacemakers. The aim of the proposed study is to examine the relationship between war and the status of women, with specific reference to political, social and economic leadership roles.

This article, from Development Update, asks why, despite our knowledge of women’s vulnerability, little has been done to overcome the social and political determinants of HIV infection in women. The authors argue that the failure of governments and international agencies to adequately address the issues of gender and HIV is due to an over-emphasis on developing technical solutions, rather than underlying social factors. Moreover, they highlight the failure of the women’s movement of Southern Africa to contest gender inequality in private spaces. This movement has focused on the needs of the middle class and has not dealt with issues of poverty and sexuality that concern poor and working class women.

In this report, the COHRE Women and Housing Rights Programme (WHRP) documents the fact that under both statutory and customary law, the overwhelming majority of women in sub-Saharan Africa – regardless of their marital status – cannot own or inherit land, housing and other property in their own right. Instead, in respect of access to land and housing, women are made entirely dependant on their relationship to a male. The paper reviews the legislation and administrative policies in relation to land, housing and inheritance rights in ten sub-Saharan African countries: Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Botswana, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Scholars and the general public have not paid much attention to non-rape forms of sex discrimination, such as sexual harassment. The concept is seen to suffer from ambiguity, and is often confused with courting or playful flirting. When it finally did receive attention sexual harassment was seen almost exclusively as a workplace phenomenon. The main objective of the study was to generate insight into Ghanaian perspectives on sexual harassment in relation to the definition, sites of harassment, experiences and perspectives on redress.

Thousands of Ebonyi women protested against the maltreatment of women and the inability of government agencies to enforce the laws aimed at stopping the evil practices against widows in the state. The women, who were led by the out-going state Commissioner for Women Affairs, Mrs. Ugo Nnach, and the wife of the Deputy Governor, Mrs. Catherine Ogbu, marched to Ebonyi Government House, the state House of Assembly and the headquarters of the judiciary to draw the attention of the heads of the three tiers of government. Addressing the women, Governor Sam Egwu promised to give immediate assent to any bill that would be passed by the House of Assembly on the rights and protection of widows in the state.

Legislation on marital rape and equality in the family could save the lives of countless women and girls, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the speaker of Uganda's Parliament. The Domestic Relations Bill, which has languished in parliament for more than a decade, would afford women and girls greater equality in matters relating to marriage, divorce and family property. It would also make marital rape illegal. Scheduled for debate in May, it was delayed once again after President Yoweri Museveni said the bill was "not urgently needed," and after members of parliament asked for more time for consultation. Debate is now anticipated in June.

Up to two-thirds of women in certain communities in Lagos State, Nigeria are believed to have experienced physical, sexual or psychological violence in the family, with neither the Lagos government nor the Federal government doing anything to stem the tide of violence – and in some cases even condoning it, said Amnesty International at a press conference launching a new report, Nigeria: Unheard voices – violence against women in the family.

The International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence (2000-2010) is aimed at fostering peace through education, promoting sustainable economic and social development, human rights promotion, equality between women and men, tolerance, participatory communication, and promoting international peace and security. The Culture of Peace program focuses on making and keeping peace at the grassroots level through education programs and mass media communications which facilitate mass participation. Read more by clicking on the URL below or visit http://www.ipeacei.org/ to find out more.

This paper complements Amartya Sen's hypothesis on the world's "missing women" -- the idea that millions of women are missing from the world due to sexual violence and discrimination -- by offering a biological explanation for the sex disparity. This paper hypothesises that the sex ratio imbalance may also be due to the effect of Hepatitis B on birth ratios. In many Asian countries the ratio of male to female population is higher than in the West -- as high as 1.07 in China and India, and even higher in Pakistan. A number of authors (most notably Sen, 1992) have suggested that this imbalance reflects excess female mortality and, as a result, have argued that as many as 100 million women are missing." This paper proposes an explanation for much of the observed over-representation of males: the hepatitis B virus.