One area in which stigma and discrimination affect women living with HIV/AIDS (WHA) is reproductive health. This report summarizes available information concerning barriers and discrimination that WHA face in exercising their full sexual and reproductive rights concerning pregnancy. It is based on an extensive review of the literature and interviews with key informants in Australia, India, Kenya, South Africa and Thailand.

Rights groups have welcomed a new law, banning all forms of female genital mutilation in Benin. ''I am pleased with the passage of the law, because, of all the countries in the sub-region, Benin was the last to outlaw female genital mutilation,'' says Genevieve Boko Nadjo, president of WILDAF-Benin, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) dealing with women issues.

The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) is a non-governmental organisation that promotes women's human rights. It works internationally to combat sexual exploitation in all its forms, especially prostitution and trafficking in women and children, in particularly girls. Visit their web site to find out more.

Once a sport restricted to men, soccer is slowly picking up among young women in Kenya. When the country's soccer federation launched a women's league, it quickly attracted a dozen teams.

Since ratifying the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1983, the Republic of the Congo had eliminated discriminatory laws and drafted other legislation to ensure gender equality, that country's representative has told the Convention's monitoring body.

Visit the web page by clicking on the link provided and sign a women's statement against a looming war on Iraq.

A section of women leaders in Kenya has accused members of the country's constitutional review team of trying to delay the review process "for personal gains" after commissioners called for the rewriting of the draft constitution.

Commending the Congo for its frank acknowledgement of serious obstacles to gender equality, expert members of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women also stressed the need for the Government to take concrete measures to eradicate the deeply entrenched traditional practices and customary laws that continued to subject women to unfair treatment.

The Government will establish a National Gender Commission to over see gender issues in the country, minister for gender, sports, culture and social services Najib Balala says.

People's Popular Theatre (PPT) is a community-based group that uses theatre to raise awareness about discrimination on the basis of gender, religion, or disability. The organisation conducts research on traditional cultural art forms and practices, exploring how they affect gender relations and then working to correct gender imbalances in society through performance art. In addressing these issues, PPT uses African artisitic modes to strengthen cultural identity. PPT focuses most of its activities in Kenya.

101.7 Mama FM, 'The Voice to Listen To' is the first radio station run by and for women in Africa, and one of three in the world. Mama FM is a community radio station aiming to address the plight of the underprivileged through developmental interactive communication and broadcasting gender sensitive educational programmes. Covering a radius of 400 km and 13 million people in Uganda, the station broadcasts in English, Kiswahili and local languages.

Since she fled her war-torn homeland more than 10 years ago, Somali refugee Zahara Mohamed Ali has learned a brutal lesson: "When you are a refugee, you become subject to all kinds of violence. You can always be mistreated."

The removal of gender discrimination and the promotion of gender equity remain central elements within the Higher Education Link scheme.  The Gender and Development (GAD) small projects fund supports projects that specifically target gender issues. These projects focus on gender and development and are intended to either add a gender dimension to an existing Higher Education Link or to stimulate interest in a gender area in a particular country to form the basis for future HE links activity.

Sexual abuse of girls in Zambia fuels the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the strikingly higher HIV prevalence among girls than boys, Human Rights Watch says in a new report. Concerted national and international efforts to protect the rights of girls and young women are key to curbing the AIDS epidemic's destructive course.

The Society for Women and AIDS in Africa (SWAA) is pleased to announce its IXth International Conference: Access to Care and Treatment for Women, Children and Families in Africa. The event will be held in Khartoum, Sudan from 26-29 May 2003.

A new report from Minority Rights Group International (MRG) expresses serious concern over the treatment of minority communities in Namibia who remain disadvantaged, marginalized and at risk in a country of extreme disparities in wealth, high unemployment and dangerous levels of rural poverty. MRG's report highlights the detrimental affects of development policies which fail to consult minority groups or consider the impact on their lives and means of livelihood.

The UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Humanitarian Needs in Southern Africa, James T. Morris, has highlighted the plight of women and children amid the twin crises of HIV/AIDS and food shortages.

Hundreds of women protesters in Nigeria's southern Niger Delta have blocked access and disrupted construction of a new naval facility planned by the government to protect oil operations in the troubled region, residents said last Friday.

This document assesses the view that globally enforced labour standards are in the interests of workers everywhere, particularly those who are unable to fight for such standards themselves. While such views may be genuinely held, the author believes that they are based on a historical and uncontextualised understanding of what is at stake.

How do urban women manage their health in their day-to-day lives? Can the organisation of living space lead to poor health? What health challenges are presented by communal living? These questions are explored in research from University Laval, Quebec, into health practices in a squatter commune in Mali.