The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is an international campaign originating from the first Women's Global Leadership Institute sponsored by the Center for Women's Global Leadership in 1991. Participants chose the dates November 25, International Day Against Violence Against Women and December 10, International Human Rights Day, in order to symbolically link violence against women and human rights and to emphasize that such violence is a violation of human rights. The 16 Days Campaign has been used as an organizing strategy by individuals and groups around the world to call for the elimination of all forms of violence against women. Visit www.kubatana.net for more information. You can also visit Unifem's 'Not a Minute More' page for more information at http://www.unifem.org/campaigns/november25/

This volume brings together essays of remarkable variety and fresh insight by leading feminists from Africa, Asia, Latin America, North America, Europe and Scandinavia. With clear- eyed realism and passionate optimism these articles raise crucial historical, organizational, ethical, conceptual, strategic and practical issues facing feminists today.

Angola heads towards its first post-civil war elections, women have called for greater participation in political life. Less than 15 percent of parliamentarians are women, and this decreased with the recent death of two female MPs. At least four other women MPs are on prolonged sick leave.

Fourteen years of war have resulted in both loss and horrific violence for Somali women. A book from the Catholic Institute for International Relations presents the harrowing testimonies of war-affected Somali women. Many have lost their male relatives and have witnessed their murders. Despite this discouraging scenario, there are some signs of hope. Local human rights organisations have emerged where none existed a decade ago and some are addressing sexual violence; In the refugee camps of northern Kenya sexual assaults on women no longer go unpunished; In the northern mini-state of Somaliland democratic elections have been held and two female cabinet ministers have been appointed and; Women in the diaspora are able to take advantage of new opportunities for education and training.

Much progress has been made in promoting girls' and women's education as a result of new experiments, increased resources, and other improvements to raise the status of women and girls in basic education, says a UNESCO paper. However, the paper says challenges remain in the effort to achieve gender equality in education, including traditional pockets of resistance, as well as the low status of women in the wider society, for example, their under representation in management and decision-making positions in the education field.

"As the conflict in Darfur continues unabated, abuses committed against women and girls have become a vital component of the conflict with many girls and women being subjected to sexual violence and kidnapping. On 2 November, SOAT received information on the kidnapping of 13 Internally Displaced women and girls (IDPs) from Kalma IDP camp, 17 kilometres east of Nyala, southern Darfur state. The women and girls were kidnapped whilst fetching fire wood outside the camp."

"We cannot have women carrying hospital beds on their heads," says Quinton Mageza of global charity ActionAid International, referring to the growing army of women and girls playing the role of nurse at home for relatives living with HIV/AIDS. Women and girls in southern African are overwhelmed by the burden of looking after these people, Mageza told IPS in South Africa’s commercial hub, Johannesburg. These women and girls have no medical training.

Abdu Mohmed, a native of Djibouti's northern town of Tadjourah who now lives in the capital, Djibouti city, still remembers his sister screaming from pain as she was circumcised years ago. "How many women have been destroyed?" he asked, referring to the widespread practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), in this tiny Horn of Africa country of 600,000 people.

An Islamic court in northern Nigeria on Wednesday threw out a death by stoning sentence against a pregnant 18-year-old girl who had been condemned for adultery. Judge Mohammed Mustapha Umar of the Upper Shariah Court in Dass, a rural town in Bauchi state, said a lower court was wrong to have convicted Hajara Ibrahim. The judge said it was an error to sentence Ibrahim both to death for adultery and 100 lashes of the cane — the punishment for pre-marital sex. The accused also was not given a chance to defend herself, the judge said.

Acknowledging that HIV/AIDS, conflict and deepening poverty have eroded gains in enrolling more girls in school in many countries, the head of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has called on nations to respect promises made to ensure that girls and boys receive the same educational opportunities. "We must not allow the promise of education for all to become another broken promise," Executive Director Carol Bellamy told the high-level meeting on Education for All, convened annually by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and its partners in Brasilia, Brazil.

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) originate in and complement human rights instruments, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA). The MDGs are a potentially powerful tool for progress on development, including around gender. However there are inadequacies in the MDGs content: they instrumentalise women as girls and mothers; many key areas are ignored such as conflict, security and reproductive and sexual health and rights; accountability mechanisms are stronger for developing countries than developed countries. This report recommends re-grounding the MDGs in human rights instruments.

This paper from the World Health Organisation argues that gender is a crucial element in achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It examines MDGs 1, 4, 5, 6, and 7 with a view to identifying areas where gender may have a bearing on work towards each goal.

Women's human rights advocates and practitioners are invited to share their views, experiences and concerns about ending violence against women and girls. Starting 8 November, UNIFEM will moderate an online discussion to assess achievements and challenges since the Fourth World Conference on Women was held in 1995. As part of a series sponsored by the United Nations Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality and hosted by WomenWatch, this discussion will feed into the forthcoming ten-year review and appraisal of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which will focus on implementation at the national level.

The Coalition for Women's Human Rights in Conflict Situations was established in 1996 and aims to promote the adequate prosecution of perpetrators of crimes of gender violence in transitional justice systems based in Africa, in order to create precedents that recognise violence against women in conflict situations and help find ways to obtain justice for women survivors of sexual violence. The new website examines the advocacy work of the Coalition at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission on strategies for the prosecution and investigation of gender crimes.

The Africa Educational Trust is running a two year part-time training programme for African women on “Researching the Needs, Presenting and Representing Women in the Community” from January 2005. Thirty African women involved with local community or other relevant organisations in the UK will be trained to conduct research into the needs of women in their communities and present their findings and act as advocates to empower women. For further information and an application form please contact May Omona at the email address provided.

Gender and Migration is the theme of the upcoming BRIDGE Cutting Edge Information Pack. BRIDGE is looking for a consultant to write a 20-25 page Overview on gender and migration to form part of this pack, and advise on other elements of the pack. We are seeking a consultant with:
- southern focus and implementation perspective
- clear lively non-academic writing style
- understanding and knowledge of both conceptual issues and practical action around gender and migration in relation to development.

Amnesty International has called on governments in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to respect and ensure respect of women's rights by lifting their reservations to the Convention on Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) [http://www.hrea.org/erc/Library/display.php?doc_id=483], which aims to protect women from violence and discrimination. In a report entitled Weakening the protection of women from violence in the Middle East and North Africa region, Amnesty International urged these governments to bring their domestic laws in line with international standards, including CEDAW, the main treaty devoted to the rights of women.

A 25-year-old woman appealed against a death-by-stoning sentence for adultery in an Islamic court on Wednesday. In September an Islamic shariah court in Nigeria's Bauchi state found Daso Adamu guilty of adultery.

A consultant is needed with experience in:
- Gender mainstreaming;
- The AU and its Specialised mechanisms;
- Advocacy for implementation and monitoring of regional and international human rights conventions on women’s rights at African level.

Ethiopia's ruling party is imposing female quotas on candidates in a bid to have more women in parliament, officials said on Friday. Women are guaranteed up to 30 percent of seats in the national elections for the incumbent Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). Opposition groups have also taken up the "historic" move as political parities battle it out in the run up to the May 2005 federal and regional elections.