The Organization of Angolan Women - OMA is the women's wing of the Popular Movement of the Liberation Angola (MPLA) and has over one and a half million members now. It represents the determination of the women of Angola. We started the "Pennies for Angola" campaign in response to the intense attacks against the Angolan people in 1999 by UNITA, a rebel organization attacking those (mainly women) who do the planting of food in the rural areas.

United Nations INSTRAW-GAINS is pleased to invite you to join its collaborative programme on: Men's roles and responsibilities in ending gender-based violence. This programme has two collaborative activities: An e-mail based VIRTUAL SEMINAR SERIES and a set of WORKING PAPERS.

There is a new publication of Women's NGO Networks in Nigeria: "Providing Reproductive Health Information and Services; Promoting Reproductive Rights". This profile documents the significant contributions of women's NGO networks in Nigeria that provide reproductive health information and services and/or promote reproductive rights.

Women's Learning Partnership (WLP) is pleased to announce the launch of our new website www.learningpartnership.org. 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.

Deadline for proposals and submission of abstracts is Dec. 30 2001. The chosen motto of WW2002 is "Gendered Worlds: Gains and Challenges." In order to get the 2nd announcement, including registration forms, please visit the Kvinnforsk/Women's Worlds 99 website.

The UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) have signed a cooperation agreement in a move to
address the alarming spread of HIV/AIDS among women and girls.

The newly established African Women's Development Fund (AWDF) is a fundraising and grant-making fund which aims to support the work of the African women's movement. The beneficiaries of the fund will be local, national and regional African women's organisations. The AWDF will raise money and make grants for the support of non-profit African women's organisations working for social justice, equity and peace. The beneficiaries of the fund will be African women's organisations working in the following areas: women's human rights; economic empowerment; political empowerment; feminist leadership development. The AWDF will also support programme work to strengthen existing initiatives in the areas of research, public policy debates and analyses, organisational development and capacity building.

Women's Action for Development, which recently became a Namibian non-governmental organisation, has been supporting and facilitating the development of women in Namibia for a number of years. Mrs Veronica de Klerk, executive director, spoke in an interview, about where women were in Namibian society, where they are and where they are going.

Djibouti, a country where almost 100 percent of women are subjected to the illegal and harmful practice of genital mutilation, has mounted on a major program to combat the tradition. The government, several religious leaders and UN agencies are joining forces.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) is now fully committed to ensuring that trainee nurses at all the midwifery and nurses training institutes become computer literate on completion of their study programmes.

The Commission for Gender Equality has put the land restitution programme at the top of its agenda for the coming gender summit to be held in August.

First Bank Nigeria Plc, one of the oldest and largest banks in Nigeria recently announced a policy banning married couples from working in its employment. The Bank directed that it would retain only one partner out of a married couple working with it. Its reason was that the Bank was undergoing reorganisation and repositioning under a new management and there was a need for discipline and efficiency. First Bank Nigeria Plc announced that the affected persons would be adequately compensated.

Nigeria is traditionally a patriarchal society with an estimated population of 120 Million, with women making 49.5%. In spite of advances in education, women still lag behind in all areas of national development. Nigerian women face barriers to full enjoyment of their rights because of ethnicity, culture, religion or lack of education. The traditions in Nigeria can be characterised as a system of beliefs and practices which put women in a position of inferiority. This inferior status of women is protected in the name of tradition, culture and religion and have deprieved women of their rights as human beings.

Nigeria has a high unemployment rate and women's access to good corporate jobs remains very limited.

This policy pitted First Bank of Nigeria Plc against the Nigeria Labour Congress and Women NGOs who immediately began advocacy campaigns against the Bank.

Women's Rights Watch campaigned against the policy because in a patriarchal society where the man makes the decisions, the wife's career will invariably give way in order to sustain her husband's.

The First Nigeria Bank policy is a reversal of the few gains made in Nigeria for the economic empowerment of women. At present, women have inequal access to employment in Nigeria and the policy could be copied by other corporate organisations in Nigeria.

The policy infringes on women's fundamental human rights to marry and contravenes the UN Convention on Elimination Against All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) to which Nigeria is a signatory. Article 11 of CEDAW prevents discrimination against women in employment and provides that States take appropriate measures to prohibit discrimination against women on the grounds of marriage - and dismissals on the basis of marital status.

The Nigerian Government has been very silent on the issue, but the NLC began a nation wide picketing against First Bank in protest of their anti-labour policies.

Happily First Bank Nigeria Plc on Wednesday the 30th of May, 2001 succumed to the pressure mounted on it by the NLC and NGOs and announce that it had reversed its policy against married couples. The bank in a memo dated 25th of May, 2001 and addressed to all heads of departments, branches, regional offices stated

"We are pleased to advise that management has revisited the issue and decided to allow married couples to remain in its employment"

Women's Rights Watch Nigeria (WRW) is of the view that corporate Nigeria is not gender sensitive! Women's Rights Watch is currently involved in a national gender sensitization campaign to lobby our national institutions - the Presidency, the National Assembly (Legislature) the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, and the National Human Rights Commission to pass the UN CEDAW into Nigerian Law. Women's Rights Watch is circulating a petition and has collected signatures from 19 countries. They include Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Canada, Zimbabwe, United States of America, Romania, Sweden, Sri Lanka, Costa Rica, Noway, Australia, South Africa, Kyrgyzstan, Philippines, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Thailand, Austria.

Please find below our petition. Send your messages of support to us at [email protected].

Children fleeing fighting in Liberia's Lofa County and separated from their families are vulnerable to attacks by rebel and government forces while girls and women are being raped, Save the Children UK reported on Wednesday.

Women for Change executive director Emily Sikazwe has condemned the practice by politicians to use women as mere tools in politics. Speaking during yesterday's national Development Review Forum at Lusaka's Intercontinental Hotel, Sikazwe said women had continued to be marginalised even though they played a major role in putting politicians into power.

The race for the leadership of the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) Women's Wing has gathered momentum as the elections' date draws near. BDP women are scheduled to elect their leaders in Shoshong this weekend at the end of their national congress.

The Global Alliance for Women's Health submits new proposals for the revised draft Declaration of Commitment on HIV /AIDS. If you or your organization would like to sign on to these proposals please contact us by e-mail.

The spate of serial killings and sexual harassment of women and teenage girls girls has been at its peak in Accra since two years or so ago, without any arrest or punishment of penetrators, until recent times when the country came under the new administration of President John Agyekum Kufuor.

Deputy Executive Director of UNFPA, Mr. Kunio Waki has stressed that international financial and other support to combat Africa's high maternal and neonatal deaths, must be backed by leadership and commitment from within Africa itself.

In the fight against AIDS, Kenyan widows living with HIV/AIDS are starting to reject forced remarriage. A recent news report by AFP highlighted the case of Mariam Salim who on the death of her husband would have been obliged to marry another member of his family.

Togo has hit the news for systematic human rights violations in terms of torture and extrajudicial killings. Now, the UN Committee on Human Rights (UNHCHR) also criticises the country for not taking women's rights and social and economic rights seriously. Togo has not been willing to provide information.