They come from neighbouring countries, but crossed paths in the tangled web of war in West Africa. Manu Famuley, a Liberian matriarch, recently fled to Sierra Leone to escape the fighting in her country. Massa Bossa, a Sierra Leonean woman, recently returned from exile in Liberia to embrace the fragile peace in her homeland. Both women passed through the same refugee camp without ever meeting, but they share similar stories that reflect the suffering and strength of the region's refugee women.

Nigerians form the largest percentage of foreign prostitutes on the rainy streets of northern Italy. Though a government crackdown making prostitution, trafficking and being trafficked illegal has slowed the trade, it has not stopped. Instead, it has gone underground, enabled by an informal network of traffickers, by parents seeking easy income and, most of all, by the inescapable poverty awaiting those who refuse to go.

Neoliberal globalization is based on patriarchy and therefore on the widespread oppression of women. Confronted by accelerating impoverishment and by more and more sophisticated forms of exclusion, numbers of women are aware that the diversity of their demands and their experience of economic pluralism form a counter-current to the dominant economic theory -- neoliberal and patricidal -- and represent serious forms of resistance.

The Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights has called for "intensified efforts to eradicate traditional practices harmful to the health of women and girls." It encouraged nongovernmental organizations to conduct studies about such practices, including ways these practices can be eradicated. It also advised governments to intensify awareness-raising campaigns on a national scale.

In June 2002, Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) hosted an online conference on Information Access for Rural Women. Information, communication and entertainment are as critical for rural living as they are for urban living, and indeed there is increasing demand for information and communication equipment and services in rural areas. However, major challenges exist in terms of available means of information access and dissemination as well as how to operate the audio-visual systems used in rural areas.

An Islamic appeal court has upheld a sentence of death by stoning for adultery against a Nigerian woman. Amina Lawal, 30, was found guilty by a court in Katsina state in March after bearing a child outside marriage.

When 56-year old Rhoda Gichiku speaks, she does it with authority.From outside, her Kathangu village in Embu, some 130 kilometres northeast of Nairobi would pass as any other African village, desperate, struggling and failing to harness local resources. But Kathangu's women have a different story - and it is the story of how some 26 women have joined hands in an Avocado soap-making project, a grassroots' initiative that is changing their lives.

In the past weeks, oil-bearing communities in the western flank of the Niger Delta have been witnessing a rising tempo of resistance to the violence of the oil and gas industry. The protests are being organised by women whose local industries such as fishing and farming and livelihood have been destroyed by transnational oil companies, ChevronTexaco and Shell. Write to ChevronTexaco, Shell and the Nigerian government telling them you support the demands of the women and their communities for a safe and conducive environment necessary for their survival.

In 12 states of Nigeria, Adultery is now punished by stoning to death. Sign our petition urging the Attorney General of Nigeria to seek judicial interpretation of Sharia Criminal Law.

UNIFEM Executive Director Noeleen Heyzer has called on the Security Council to make sure that women, peace and security become a regular item on the political agenda and in thematic debates of the Council.

When a group of unarmed women protesters occupied ChevronTexaco's main oil export terminal in Nigeria last month, they not only disrupted operations in a key oil facility, but also altered the rules of engagement in the longstanding conflict in the Niger Delta oil region.

Throughout the 1990s, several major United Nations conferences stressed the importance of including women in sustainable development. But despite these commitments on paper, there has been far too little action. Gender myopia—or blindness to women’s issues—still distorts environmental, economic, and health policies. Today, a full decade after the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, governments, development agencies, and even some NGOs remain resolutely patriarchal. Despite the widespread belief that women “have come a long way” in achieving improved social and economic status, they continue to face many of the same obstacles they did ten years ago. And in some cases, these problems have become even more formidable.

Angola's civil war may have ended, but the behaviour and attitudes of its people are still dominated by violence, with women often on the receiving end.

Togolese traditional chiefs, religious leaders and health specialists have been trained to promote women's rights at a seminar organised by a non-governmental organisation, Women in Law and Development in Africa.

Hygiene education for women is a standard component of water supply projects. However, evaluations frequently reveal little change in hygiene and sanitation behaviour and so water-borne illnesses persist. Why is it so hard to convey water-related health messages?

All forms of violence against women and girls committed in the name of honour should be criminalized, and those deliberately participating in such acts should be penalized, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan says in a new report.

In Sweden, a country with high standards of obstetric care, the high rate of perinatal mortality among children of immigrant women from the Horn of Africa raises the question of whether there is an association between female circumcision and perinatal death.

Abiteye village lies in the heart of the Niger Delta region. American oil giant ChevronTexaco has a gas plant and an oil flow station here. But for its oil installations, the company's premises could pass for a maximum-security prison. Barbwire fences and iron bars separate the company from the community. Inside the company's premises, police, soldiers and naval personnel clutching assault rifles stand guard.

One woman was shot dead last Thursday in Nigeria's southern oil town of Warri when groups of women protesters besieged the premises of oil transnationals Royal/Dutch Shell and ChevronTexaco, witnesses said.

The deliberate victimisation of women during recent wars has focused attention on the different impacts of internal and transnational conflicts on men and women. At the same time, the contribution of women and women's organisations to conflict resolution, management and peace building is also gaining wider recognition.