This story is part of the SAfAIDS "positive voices" series. The story is published as related by Tarisai, an HIV positive Zimbabwean woman, to Dr Sunanda Ray at SAfAIDS. With these stories, SAfAIDS aims to highlight the real life experiences of people living positively with HIV.

Coordinator of a women rights group, Seodi White, is a busy lawyer. When she is not giving free legal advice to women, she is busy conducting human rights education programmes for them. White is one of the few female lawyers in Malawi.

Ugandan women are becoming better farmers thanks to an interactive CD-Rom. The CD gives advice about ways to improve yields from crops and livestock, how to market what they produce and helps the women think about new products they can make and sell.

Education Minister Kader Asmal on Monday called on Transport Minister Dullah Omar to request train operators to consider restricting the use of some train carriages for women only. Asmal asserted that this would help reduce violence against girls on trains and reduce the overall levels of gender-based violence in society.

African health rights activists and researchers from all sub-regions of the continent will meet to discuss issues with policy makers and health service providers -- bringing a forum for debate on some of the most critical issues of Gender and Health in Africa between 4 and 7 February, 2003 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

With women forming 49.68 per cent of the country's population according to a 1991 census, even though they are still marginalised politically, they remain very powerful as they control voting numbers in Nigeria, the Minister of Women Affairs and Youth Development, Hajiya Aisha Ismail has said.

Kanu will give financial backing to its women candidates in the forthcoming general elections, Secretary General, Raila Odinga, has said. Raila said Kanu will give women an equal chance in campaigning for parliamentary and civic seats.

A drug that reduces the trauma and risks of abortion has been available since February - but many of the women who need it most are not aware it exists. Mifepristone, developed in France under the working name RU486, also known as the "abortion pill", was registered by the Medicines Control Council last September, and has been available through private clinics for five months.

African women's voices will now be heard online, thanks to the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), which has announced the launch of a website with information on gender issues in the Horn of Africa.

The Special Adviser to the President on Women Affairs, Mrs. Titilayo Ajanaku, has called for the restructuring of the political parties at all levels to ensure gender balance. She said "all stakeholders hold it as a duty to see how the women can be encouraged to function and how to make the atmosphere conducive for women's participation without destroying their identities and distinctiveness."

Last year one in five pregnant women in the Karibib district were teenagers who should have been in school, says Dr Matthew Akpo. The Usakos-based doctor told a Women's Action for Development (WAD) Field Day at Karibib last Saturday, that the teenage pregnancy rate remained high even though health workers were teaching family planning techniques.

The Eastern and Southern African Symposium on Young Women and HIV/AIDS, will take place in Nairobi, Kenya between 27-29 November. The theme is HIV/AIDS, Education and Youth.

A group of 25 population, women's rights, medical, religious and health groups sent a letter last week to US President George Bush asking him to release life-saving funds for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The group says women and their children are suffering because the funds have not been released.

Swaziland’s authorities have been accused of stepping up their repression of women following a decree that women may not wear trousers because it against social traditions. Reports from the capital Mbabane say soldiers will enforce the law by ripping trousers off women who dare to flout the custom.

Women must seize the opportunity of equality and fight for their rights, the Ethiopian government urged on Monday. Without their full participation in society the country could never attain rapid and sustained development, the information ministry declared in a statement.

The three East African Community (EAC) states have expressed their commitment to ensuring that women become active participants in trade. Kenya's minister in charge of EAC affairs, Nicholas Biwott, said each partner state had committed itself to the goal of advancing women in all spheres of development, both at the national and regional levels.

Poor and illiterate women and girls in Togo will soon be helped to learn how to avoid HIV/AIDS infection and care for those infected in a joint project between the UN and the Togo government.

Governments in East Africa have been told to facilitate the inclusion of more women in politics to enhance their participation in governance. An MP in the East Africa Assembly, MP Betty Amongi of Uganda, said her country was ahead of Kenya and Tanzania in that respect. It had embraced a scheme that ensured many women made it to Parliament.

Universities have been told to do research on the low number of girls at all levels of education and recommend remedies to the government. It was not enough to sit back and complain that only a small percentage of female students managed to make it beyond secondary school, says educationist Eddah Gachukia.

The World Food Summit: Five Years Later held from June 10 to 13 in Rome, Italy has been criticized for giving the same speeches as five years ago. Most wealthy nations sent low-level delegations. Marked by calls from the United States to support biotech research, activists feared that the Summit took a leap backward in the fight against hunger. In spite of shortcomings, however, side event discussions were noteworthy for continually recognizing women's contributions and strategic importance in world food production and security.