Judith Kanzayire, a 29-year-old mother of three children from northern Rwanda, admits that she was the victim of 'marriage by abduction'. "What can you do? It's the tradition here. We have no choice but to accept it,” she says. When asked if she is happy with her life and if she has learned to love her husband, she laughs out loud. “I'm his wife, and that's the end of it,” she replies.

Women from Ikebiri community in Apoi-Olodiama local government area of Bayelsa State have taken over an oil rig (Bintanc Kalamatani) belonging to Farashole Drilling, working for the Nigeria Agip Oil Company. The women, numbering about five hundred, most of them elderly, are protesting against Agip for not implementing parts of the agreement it signed with the community five years ago.

The National Human Rights Commission has been asked to investigate the alleged detention of a nine-month-old pregnant woman and her husband by the Anambra State police command on the instructions of a Lagos based businessman.

Dieynaba Hamady Sow, 12, died on May 31 from haemorrhaging caused by sexual intercourse on her wedding night after she was forced to marry her 35-year-old cousin. Sow died six days after her marriage to Moussa Coulibaly in Matam, a town 720 kilometres north of the Senegalese capital, Dakar. The only punishment he received was a two-month prison sentence. The case shocked the nation, where women are increasingly becoming victims of domestic violence.

The mood is joyful as a group of Somali women break into song and dance to crown Asha Abdi's decision to declare her interest in the presidency, the top job in the land. Asha, who is a delegate at the ongoing Somalia peace talks being held in Nairobi, Kenya, says she is looking forward to uniting her country, which has been embroiled in a bloody civil war since 1991.

Uganda registers a total of 80, 000 HIV positive pregnant women each year. Ugandan Minister of Health Jim Muhwezi was quoted as saying that the number represents 6.5 percent of the estimated 1.2 million women who get pregnant in the country annually.

Over 30 leaders from non-governmental organisations and local authorities from the Horn, East and Southern Africa convened in Kampala, Uganda in September 2003 for the first Regional Dialogue, Preventing Gender-based Violence: Sharing Experiences, Breaking New Ground, organised by Raising Voices and UN-HABITAT's Safer Cities Programme. The Kampala Declaration calls on civil society, local authorities, UN agencies, governments and funding agencies to increase attention, investment and action on preventing gender-based violence in Africa. Read the Kampala Declaration at www.raisingvoices.org/declaration.shtml and join us in preventing gender-based violence by adding your name in support.

Amnesty International has welcomed the decision by the Sharia Court of Appeal of Katsina State, in northern Nigeria to quash Amina Lawal's sentence to death by stoning handed down by a Sharia court at Bakori, in Katsina State on 22 March 2002. But Amnesty says the federal government of Nigeria should take steps to abolish the death penalty and amend all pieces of legislation which introduce the death penalty as well as cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments at all levels of the Nigerian legislation, including the Shari'ah penal legislation.

Women are quickly becoming the new face of AIDS in the regions hardest hit by the disease and may herald the future of AIDS worldwide. In 2000, women comprised 50 percent of adults living with HIV worldwide for the first time since the pandemic began more than 20 years ago.

Empowerment has been a key term in South African business over the past decade. While the focus has been on black economic empowerment, women disadvantaged by socio-cultural discrimination are demanding recognition of the inequity that long denied them various opportunities in business life.

A Nigerian Islamic appeal court has cleared single mother Amina Lawal of adultery, for which she had been sentenced to be stoned to death. In a split verdict a panel of five judges at the Sharia Appeal Court in the northern city of Katsina, found in favour of the 31-year-old mother of four at her second bid to get the sentence lifted.

Idiatou Balde, in her late 30s, exhibits and sells indigo-tinted fabrics in an up market in Conakry, the capital of Guinea. Balde, a chemical engineer, who runs a local organisation called ''Walinderin'' (let's help each other, in a local language), is a divorcee whose trajectory in life is similar to that of hundreds of other Guinean women who have refused to pay heed to the dictates of men.

Thirty Ugandan women met in Limuru, 35 kilometres from the Kenyan capital Nairobi, to mark the International Day of Peace on September 21, and chart out ways of bringing peace to war ravaged regions of their country. The women, the majority of them from the war-torn northern Uganda, also attended a four-day peace and reconciliation conference between September 16-19 in Limuru organised by People for Peace in Africa, a pressure group, and Uganda Gender Resource Centre.

Dorcus Apecu is a primary seven schoolgirl who keeps her fingers crossed. She is praying that her mother does not take her out of school and get her married due to lack of school fees. At sixteen, Dorcus is already 'over age' in a society where girls are married off early in order to get bride price and reduce family burdens. Dorcus' two sisters are already married because their mother could not afford to look after them after their father died, leaving behind nine children and a jobless wife.

The shroud of silence and denial surrounding male sex workers in Africa has left them unable to access services addressing HIV/AIDS and their sexual health needs, researchers say. According to a study presented on Tuesday at the 13th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA), HIV/AIDS programmes targeting men who sell sex in Africa were "lagging behind", if not virtually non-existent.

The new Rwandan Constitution contains 22 articles on gender equality and the promotion of women's rights. On the occasion of its promulgation in June, UNIFEM and representatives from various national organisations and institutions organised a series of events in all 11 Provinces to sensitise government officials and the general public on the constitutional rights of women and to celebrate women's involvement in developing the constitution. A UNIFEM brochure on women's rights and gender equality was distributed throughout the Provinces for the occasion. For more information, contact Rose Rwabuhihi, Programme Specialist for
UNIFEM Africa, at [email protected].

An African National Congress Women's League delegation is scheduled to depart for Nigeria at 2pm on Tuesday as part of the organisation's campaign to save Amina Lawal, the ANC Youth League said. Lawal (31) is a Nigerian citizen facing death by stoning for having a baby outside wedlock.

HIV-positive women in Botswana have created an innovative support network through which newly diagnosed women receive individual care and companionship from other women living with the virus. Traditional care programmes often focused on treatment and counselling services, without taking into account something as simple as support in the form of friendship, delegates attending the 13th International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA) heard on Monday.

The United Nations refugee agency has launched revised guidelines for combating sexual and gender-based violence against displaced women and children in a bid to ensure better delivery of services and protection of those at risk. The 158-page book launched last Friday is a revision of the first edition published in 1995 by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

This document reports on a workshop held in Cape Town in March/April 2003. It details the background to the workshop, the participants, the strands in which they participated and the main comments made by the women about their use of ICTs.