Women's Learning Partnership (WLP) is pleased to announce the launch of our new website . WLP is a non-profit organization working to empower women and girls in the Global South through leadership training, capacity-building, and helping women generate as well as receive information and knowledge.

The situation confronting Egypt's sexual minority communities - historically marginalized legally and socially - has over the past few weeks deteriorated to the point where with every sign of an anti-homosexual "witch-hunt" in the offing indicates an incipient human rights tragedy. Readers of the following report -compiled from a variety of internet sources -are strongly urged to contact their country's foreign minister and ambassador to Egypt for the purpose of relaying the growing world concern over events there.

Unmet need for contraception in developing countries is often attributed to a lack of family planning services. Yet the problem of unmet need persists in urban areas with reasonable access to services. Is poor communication between couples responsible for continuing unmet contraceptive need?

Are Egyptian women getting the services they need from existing family planning programmes? What factors influence women's decisions about contraception? How can family planning services be improved to help meet women's needs? Research from the London School of Economics and the Egyptian National Population Council investigated the unmet need for contraception in rural Egypt.

UNIFEM Executive Director, Noeleen Heyzer, today announced a 5-point Call for Action to make women central to every strategy in the fight against HIV/AIDS. "There is a direct correlation between women's low status, the violation of their human rights and HIV transmission," said Heyzer. "This is not simply a matter of social justice. Gender inequality is fatal."

Facilitating access to, and exploitation of, information and communication technologies (ICTs) for marginalized communities, especially women and youth: this is the main objective of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC)'s Acacia Initiative, which has launched a project to ensure massive representation of women in all aspects of the program, and to incorporate gender sensitivity into the design, implementation and evaluation of projects that are part of the Initiative.

Rwanda's speaker of parliament, Vincent Biruta, on Thursday urged the government to place gender-related issues at the "forefront" of all the country's developmental decisions, the Rwanda News Agency (RNA) said. Biruta who was addressing a conference of women parliamentarians from Tanzania, Burundi and South Africa, spelt out the need to have equal participation in development and decision-making in particular.

As reported in the April issue of the Korogocho Times, the Project launched a women's project on 21st May, 2001. A total of 8 women are now with the project and as result a new line of products have been introduced to best utilize the women's skills. These include beaded chains, bracelets, earrings with wildlife carvings from bones and wood, necklaces, tie and dye, and beaded belts.

Trafficked women find it particularly difficult to obtain redress as in many parts of the world they are treated as criminals rather than as victims. Trafficking involves the recruitment, transportation, purchase or sale of human beings, by violence, abduction force fraud, deception, coercion or debt for the purpose of exploitation.

A Muslim leader yesterday opposed the Equality Bill, saying it contradicted religious teachings. The deputy director-general of the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims, Mr Adan Wachu, claimed that gender equality was "not an issue" among Muslims. He insisted that even if the Bill is passed by Parliament, it should not be allowed to apply to Muslim women as "the Quran has it own way of dealing with marriage, succession, adoption, divorce and abortion."

Millions of African refugees are subjected to violence as war and civil strife ravage most of the continent. Eighty five per cent of the refugees are women and children, writes CALEB ATEMI.

We call your attention to President Bush's new "Global Gag Rule" that will disqualify non-governmental organizations from receiving family planning funding if they provide counselling on abortion, provide safe legal abortion services, except in very narrow circumstances, or participate in political debates surrounding abortion. The result of the "Gag Rule" will be more unintended pregnancies, more unsafe abortions, and more women's deaths.

Nearly three-fourths of women have not yet pressed the "Power" button to get them into the new economy even as the Internet has emerged as the "IN" place to conduct business and to to get competitive information. This piece by Rosemary Brisco analyses why.

The United Nations yesterday appealed to world leaders to shift the central focus from men to women at upcoming talks to devise a global strategy to fight the spread of AIDS.

Ghanaian journalists must be getting ready to celebrate. Criminal Libel will go, and it will be in style, for the NDC would support the Criminal Libel Law Amendment Bill when it is brought before the House for consideration.

Salary : £15,383 - £16,974 depending on experience
Location : (Vauxhall, London), United Kingdom
Closing Date : 13 Jul 2001
Job posted on : 19 Jun 2001

About 69 trafficked Nigerian girls are deported monthly, wife of the Vice President, Mrs. Titi Abubakar, has said. Addressing youth corps members during an awareness campaign at the NYSC orientation camp in Kubwa, a satellite town in the Federal Capital Territory, Mrs. Abubakar lamented that between March and April this year, about 1,126 of such girls had been deported.

Two UN agencies join hands to fight the fast spread of HIV/AIDS among women and girls. Women now constitute 47% of the 34.7 million adults living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, while the number is 55% for Sub-Saharan Africa - and increasing.

One year before the general elections in Morocco, international and national organisations are preparing the field for an enhanced political participation of women. Morocco has one of the lowest rates of women's participation in government and politics globally, with only one female minister and no female parliamentarians.

According to information received by OMCT, an assembly of approximately 100 women met peacefully in front of the French embassy, in the early morning of June 11th 2001, with the intention to hand over a letter of protest regarding the “complicity of France in the electoral hold-up of May 20th 2001” to the French
Ambassador. It is reported that the police forces brutally put a halt to the assembly by throwing grenades at the women. Among the 14 injured, 4 are allegedly seriously hurt.