The Taliban's inhumane treatment of women in Afghanistan has led many people to conclude that Islam itself is intolerant of family planning and reproductive health services. In reality, Islam plays out differently across cultures, and the acceptability of family planning varies significantly from country to country, according to "Islam, Women and Family Planning: A Primer," by Heather Boonstra, senior public policy associate with The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI).

The Women Refugees Project is a non governmental organization directed by women for women refugees in Zambia. The Women Refugees Organization is focusing on challenges of how women refugees' rights can be respected.

A new CD-ROM entitled "Rural Women in Africa: Ideas for Earning Money" tries to meet the demand of providing content material to use online once rural women have access to computers. Designed as a visual "computer book," it allows the user to easily navigate using only a click of the "mouse." Developed by the International Women's Tribune Centre (IWTC) in partnership with a technical team in Uganda and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) East and Southern Africa Office in Nairobi, it is intended for use by women with minimal education and only local language fluency. Available in English and Luganda, plans call for the addition of other language tracks in the near future. To order, or for more information, contact:
IWTC/Women.

The Bibliography of Research on Uganda Women 1986-2001 has been prepared for a new book entitled The New Women's Movement in Uganda to be launched at the Women's Worlds 2002 Congress, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda. The book is edited by Joy Kwesiga and Aili Tripp, and the bibliography is prepared by Sheela Jhaveri and Margaret Snyder.

How do women’s land rights change as customary tenure systems give way to individualized land tenure? While the individualization of land rights creates incentives for poor farmers in marginal areas to adopt agroforestry, not much is known about its impact on women’s land rights. Land,Trees, and Women examines the evolution of customary land tenure institutions in areas of Western Ghana and Western Sumatra where traditional matrilineal inheritance systems have been changing. In these two areas, the authors find that individualization of land tenure has contributed to both increased gender equity and greater efficiency in agroforestry management. While property rights institutions are moving toward providing proper incentives for efficient natural resource management, the authors conclude that any program or legal framework that assigns rights to resources must be evaluated for barriers to women’s participation.

Preparations for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), to be held in Johannesburg in September 2002, are underway across the world. The Summit marks the tenth anniversary of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio in 1992. Women played an historic role at UNCED and successfully shaped the final document, Agenda 21, gaining 172 references to women (up from 2 references in the first draft), a strong chapter on women and the recognition of women as one of the major groups. In an effort to strengthen women's influence in the WSSD process and outcome, WEDO and REDEH (Network for Human Development), a key organizer of Planeta FEMEA at UNCED, are facilitating the preparation of Women's Action Agenda for a Healthy and Peaceful Planet 2015. A second draft will be produced and circulated for review by March 1, 2002. The final version of WAA2002 will be ready for endorsement by the end of April (at PrepCom IV in Indonesia) and serve as an advocacy tool leading up to the WSSD.

This ambitious book explores challenges to male hegemony throughout continental Europe. It focuses especially on France, but it also offers comparative material on developments in the German speaking countries and in the smaller European nations and aspiring nation-states. Spanning 250 years, the sweeping coverage extends from Portugal to Poland, Greece to Finland, Ireland to Ukraine, and Spain to Scandinavia - as well as international and transnational feminist organizations. The study has several objectives. For general readers and those interested primarily in the historical record, it provides a comprehensive, comparative account of feminist developments in European societies, as well as a rereading of European history from a feminist perspective. By placing gender, or relations between women and men, at the center of European politics, where the author argues that it belongs but from which it has long been marginalized, the book aims to reconfigure our understanding of the European past and to make visible a long but neglected tradition of feminist thought and politics. On another level, by providing a broad and accurate historical analysis, the book seeks to disentangle some misperceptions and to demystify some confusing contemporary debates about the Enlightenment, reason, nature, equality vs. difference, and public vs. private, among others. The author argues that historical feminisms offer us far more than logical paradoxes and contradictions; feminisms are about sexual politics, not philosophy. Feminist victories are not, strictly speaking, about getting the argument right, nor is gender merely "a useful category of analysis"; sexual difference lies at the heart of human thought and politics. Stanford University Press, 1999, ISBN: 0804734208.

The discovery of oil in Nigeria’s Niger Delta in 1956 triggered a chain of events that has led to the political and economic marginalisation of the inhabitants. Despite 40 years of oil production and hundreds of billions of dollars of oil revenue, the people of the Niger Delta remain in abject poverty without even the most basic amenities such as water and electricity. Rivers, farmland and fishing creeks have been subjected to devastation, due to the activities of the Western oil companies operating in the Niger Delta, whilst the people themselves have been on the receiving end of repression and brutality by successive Nigerian governments. Blood and Oil gives voice and agency to the women of the region. We hear them speak of their fears and sufferings and pains. We hear them speak of rape and defilement and death. They speak of loss of property and limbs and loved ones but are made extraordinary and heroic by their deeds and there determined refusal to be oppressed.

Mauritius is aiming to ensure that women's equality is reflected in the national budget and economic policies, a UNDP press release announced on Wednesday.

Gender Links, a Johannesburg-based NGO specialising in gender and the media in Southern Africa, is seeking a suitably qualified programme officer for an initial one year contract.

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11th BRIDGE has become increasingly aware of the need for gender impact analysis of the international situation. Despite massive amounts of coverage, this has been largely ignored by reporters, experts, analysts and politicians. However, the gender implications are diverse and far reaching.

African producers exporting fresh fruit, vegetables and flowers to UK supermarkets now have to meet codes of conduct covering their conditions of employment. Much of the workforce is female seasonal labour, with men predominantly occupying permanent and more secure work. Employment conditions are often far worse for women. The gender-sensitivity of many company codes is weak with little stakeholder participation at a local level. Unless gender issues are addressed, ethical trade may not improve the employment conditions of the majority workforce.

Women in Africa have been the hardest hit by HIV/AIDS. Twenty years into the pandemic, very little has been done to empower them to insist on safe sex.

The draft protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa as adopted by the Meeting of Government Experts in Addis Ababa on 16 November 2001.

There is no place on Earth where neo-liberalism has not poisoned. It has allowed a handful of private interests to control as much as possible of social life in order to maximize personal profit. It has poisonous effects especially in the Third World, where imperial powers continue to pirate natural and human resources to fill the pockets of transnational capitalists. as women fighting against global capitalism and its new phase, as women yearning for a better world where we will not be exploited and abused, we must go a step further into looking into this 'neo-liberalism' through the experiences of women. And it is not just about how women linearly experience it - we must go into the depths to manifest how neo-liberalism operates in a very gender-biased way.

Unfolding events in Afghanistan have brought worldwide attention to the severe treatment of women under the Taliban. As the Afghan people prepare to rebuild their country, and as they explore ways to include women in this process, World Bank experts say that countries which promote women's rights and increase their access to resources and schooling enjoy lower poverty rates, faster economic growth and less corruption than countries that do not.

UNIFEM's Nairobi-based African Women in Crisis Programme has commissioned two short studies of groups of women living in the margins of society to ensure that the issues they represent are restored to the development agenda. The first study will examine the impact of a large refugee camp (65,000 inhabitants) on a local population of agro-pastoralists whose fragile economy is teetering on the edge of extinction after several years of drought. Young girls and older women from the Turkana community in Northern Kenya are drawn to the opportunities afforded by Kakuma camp, which offers access to medical and educational facilities, but also forced marriages and work in camp brothels. The second study revisits the situation of internally displaced women in Kenya's Rift Valley and Laikipia Plateau, many of whom remain displaced since the so-called "land clashes" which preceded the 1992 elections and others as a result of subsequent ethnic conflicts. For more information, contact Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda, Regional Programme Director for East, Central and Horn of Africa.

The draft of the report prepared for the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights by its Special Rapporteur on Women has just been received in Nairobi. The report reviews what is meant by violence against women in the context of international campaigns (using the example of female genital mutilation), national laws and the African Charter. It also examines the situation in three West African countries: Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire and Sierra Leone, in terms of domestic violence, state-sponsored violence and conflict-related violence with particular reference to refugee women. The draft text will be reviewed by an Expert Meeting in Maputo in March 2002 and the final version will be presented to the African Commission at its 31st Session, to be held in Pretoria on 2-16 May, 2002.
For more information, contact Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda, Regional Programme Director, UNIFEM Nairobi Office.

The Organization for African Unity Expert Meeting held in Addis Ababa, (12-16 November) to consider the Additional Protocol on women's rights to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights concluded its deliberations by adopting an Article providing for the rights of women and their protection around issues of violence. There was an impasse on some elements related to the elimination or continued legal recognition of polygamous marriages. UNIFEM and its partners contributed to the strengthening of the language on reproductive rights specifically related to HIV/AIDS, widows rights and inheritance rights as well as rights to peace, which compliments the UN Security Council Resolution 1325. For more information, contact Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda, Regional Programme Director for East, Central and Horn of Africa.

The African Gay and Lesbian community in New York is shifting more and more from its barely visible position under the radar to a front and center role in African lives. And yet, for some Africans their increased visibility is incredulous. “There is one?” a gay Nigerian artist asked the other day. I had heard of one or two people but not an entire community,’’ she said.