Despite the growing number of women choosing a media career, very few are in decision-making positions, a situation the recently formed Botswana Media Women Association (BOMWA) aims to correct. "In the leadership positions we have not reached 30 percent representation because media remains male-dominated at management levels," said Shollo Phetlhu, BOMWA chairperson and acting general manager of Botswana TV (BTV).

Ethiopia is ranked as having the fourth highest number of deaths due to neonatal tetanus in the world with over 40,000 estimated infant deaths. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has initiated a new tetanus campaign targeting 2.6 million women in Ethiopia. It is targeted at women of childbearing age between the ages of 15 and 49 in the Oromiya and Amhara regions.

Amnesty International is calling for the sentence of 100 lashes, passed on a 16-year-old school girl in the Sudanese capital Khartoum for the "crime" of adultery, to be commuted immediately. Intisar Bakri Abdulgader gave birth to a child in September after becoming pregnant outside marriage. She was convicted of adultery and sentenced by a local court in the Khartoum suburb of Kalakla in July when she was seven months pregnant. The sentence was upheld by the appeal court in August. The alleged father of the child has reportedly not been charged but will have a blood test to establish paternity.

A fan blows a gentle breeze across a women's ward in a hospital in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. It comes as a relief to 25-year-old Rukia Pendeza who lies in a bed recovering from an operation to repair an obstetric fistula. Obstetric fistula occurs following a protracted and difficult childbirth and leaves women unable to control their urine and faeces. It is a gynaecological problem which affects the poorest of women in developing countries and it also appears to be on the increase in Tanzania.

It is the third day of a peace building and conflict management workshop at Gulu teacher's centre. Most of the participants are women who belong to the Grassroots Women for Development (GWARD), an NGO in Gulu. Others are members of the Uganda Media Women's Association (UMWA). The meeting is mainly focusing on health in the internally displaced people's camps, women and children's rights in the camps and nationalising the war in the north.

A New Domestic Relations Bill under debate in parliament is generating intense debate, with a section of the public accusing the government of trying to interfere with their freedom in order to garner support from women in the 2006 elections. The Bill proposes that, for a man to marry a second wife, he must get the consent of the first wife and approval from district councils.

Sixty per cent of Nairobi’s two million inhabitants live in informal settlements. Kibera, home to around 700,000 people, is the largest of these. It is very overcrowded, and littered with rubbish. As it is an illegal settlement, the government provides no basic services. In the poorest areas of Nairobi, Kenya, the demands of parents have encouraged the new government to abolish fees in public schools. An Oxfam programme has also recognised that gender equitable education means more than access, and is attempting to address the specific problems which girls face.

Couples in Cameroon are in a frisky mood following the end of a two-month strike during which women refused to have sex with their husbands. The 6,000 women in the north-west of the country were protesting against the destruction of crops by cattle.

"It is evident that despite best intentions, the project of creating an Information Society is not working. The world requires a more high velocity approach to making ICTs relevant to major development challenges. Women's perspectives can contribute to making the difference between an Information Economy where gambling and pornography account for the most profitable applications and a true Information Society that serves human development."

Established in June 2002, the Binti Pamoja Centre is designed to create a safe space for girls and young women to discuss reproductive health issues and to address problems such as gender discrimination, domestic abuse, and rape. Located in the low-income area of Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya, the Centre uses group discussion, art, and photography to enable young participants to speak out about - and, ultimately, effect social change related to - difficult issues.

Zambian girls are defying traditional barriers, teenage pregnancy and the risk of HIV infection to go back to school to finish their education. They are doing this despite the findings of a new report that girls in sub-Saharan Africa face the highest school drop-out rate in the world, with up to 83 percent of all girls who no longer attend school living in the region. But "The State of the World's Children", released last Thursday by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) also lists the Programme for the Advancement of Girls' Education (PAGE), a collaboration between the Zambian government and UNICEF, as an example of the type of action required by governments and the international community to reverse the trend.

How many young girls were used by Angola's warring parties during its 27-year war is anyone's guess. Denial - by both sides - and fear of discrimination and stigma among former girl soldiers continue to stand in the way of any effort to come up with precise figures. Both the government and the former rebel group, UNITA, have in the past denied recruiting child soldiers. However, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has claimed that minors were widely used by both sides during the conflict. The refusal to acknowledge the role played by child soldiers, especially girls, during Angola's hostilities has complicated efforts by aid groups to address the problem.

As African women take on new roles in government, business and other realms of modern life, their position in traditional society is also evolving and expanding into a domain long the stronghold of men. Chiefs, monarchs and regents across much of the continent have been almost exclusively male in accordance with customs of clearly defined and distinct spheres of influence between the sexes: public roles for men, domestic ones for the women. But beneath the outer vestiges of traditional power, some women have had a voice.

A South African judge who tried to bring perpetrators of the Rwanda genocide to justice and grassroots Rwandan women's groups that are aiding the victims of the massacres have been honoured with a new women's rights prize. A ceremony was held for the winners to coincide with Human Rights Day. Advisors for the private foundation that awarded the first Women's Rights Prize described Judge Pillay as "a hero for humanity and a special inspiration for women."

After banning abortion in the country, but then leaving an option for its eventual legalization, the new draft constitution typifies the ambiguous feeling most Swazis have toward the procedure. Abortion is unlikely to be seen as a tool to curb population growth any time soon, according to the draft constitution. Under Chapter IV, “Protection and Promotion of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms,” section 16, clause 5 states, “Abortion is unlawful.” However, the word “unlawful” is followed by the qualifying word “except on grounds where the continued pregnancy will endanger the life or constitute a serious threat to the physical health of the woman, where there is a serious threat to the mental health of a woman, or there is serious risk that the child will suffer from physical or mental defect of such a nature that the child will be irreparably seriously handicapped.”

In order to examine the gender-based challenges faced by young women living with HIV and AIDS in East and Southern Africa, the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW) and the Youth Against AIDS Network (YAAN) are planning a regional meeting in South Africa in February 2004. The meeting will provide a space for 20 young women living with HIV and AIDS from East and Southern Africa to explore the range of issues affecting them.

WEDO is an international advocacy organisation that seeks to increase the power of women worldwide. WEDO is holding a series of regional meetings in Latin America (November 2003), Africa and Asia (Spring 2004) to assess achievements and challenges in both the global and national/regional women's advocacy and strengthen alliances and strategies among women's organisations. In preparation for the Africa and Asia regional meetings, WEDO will offer an internship in New York City for young women from and based in Africa and Asia.

The state minister for Defence has ordered the army to stop referring to rescued girls as former wives of rebel commanders. Ms Ruth Nankabirwa said such references could traumatize the girls, who were forced to marry the rebel commanders of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). "It has never been their [girls] wish that they get married to those commanders. I want to ask my commanders to change the language of reporting," she said at the army general headquarters in Bombo.

The demonstration was brutally put down. Police lashed out, their blows temporarily paralysing slower protesters who couldn't escape the random thrashing. Women were amongst those badly beaten during the demonstration, held in Zimbabwe's second-largest city Bulawayo, last Wednesday. Some were mid-afternoon shoppers who'd been scuttling between stores, searching for scarce commodities like bread to take home to their families. Several were unaware of the protest until it was too late, and they were caught on the wrong side of the police cordon.

In South Africa, a large percentage of women face a system of entrenched discrimination as they seek to enter the work force. Most women at the community level have no access to economic rights or opportunities, and as a result rank among the poorest in their society. They are ruled by traditional cultural norms that leave them vulnerable to unchecked domestic and public violence. In a country where unemployment and poverty are rife, women are even more vulnerable than their male counterparts, and fight an uphill battle just to stay above the poverty line.