A Summit of African First Ladies on Global Movement for children in Marrakech, Morocco ended yesterday (Sunday April 22). The summit, which is deliberating on matters affecting the movement of children globally, lasted 3 days. Analysts see this move as a new initiative with the view of attracting the world's attention to the United Nations General Assembly Special Summit on Children, which is scheduled for September this year.

Women produce 60 to 80% of the food in most developing countries and this percentage is growing. In 1950 women performed almost 40% of agricultural work, today the figure is close to 50%. In sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, women provide 80% of staple foods, in Asia they perform 90% of the work in rice fields.

Women journalists in Eastern and Central Africa have launched their own news Web site to counter what they see as bias in Western and male-dominated news.

Seventy-five women in northern Benin have vowed to give up female genital mutilation (FGM) following an awareness campaign initiated by a group of NGOs.

The Forum for African Women Educationalists, (FAWE) Ghana chapter has expressed dismay about the way the mass media report defilement cases. FAWE says it was time the media stopped reporting rape cases and human right abuses with "glee" to entice their readers and listeners.

New testimonies by refugees returning from Guinea to Sierra Leone, through the "safe passage through rebel-held territory", prove the systematic rape of Sierra Leonean women by RUF terrorists/rebels. The rebels "said they were not going to kill us, but that they would use us until they would be satisfied," one woman who was gang raped reported.

The Council for Economic Empowerment of Women of Africa, Uganda chapter (CEEWA-U) with support from International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is implementing an Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) Project to promote Community Economic Empowerment. The main objective of the project is to enable women entrepreneurs and women organisations that promote enterprise development to explore ways and means of exploiting ICTs for community economic empowerment.

Following more than four years of coordinated studies in ten African countries, The North-South Institute have launched Demanding Dignity: Women Confronting Economic Reforms in Africa. A groundbreaking and innovative study of African women’s struggles to deal with gender-bias in financial and economic policies, the 300-page volume covers 13 case studies in the countries of Togo, Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya, Chad and Ghana.

Female Zambian politicians this week are holding a conference in Lusaka to define a strategy on how to rise the percentage of women candidates in the forthcoming Zambian legislative and presidential elections. Hurdles for women candidates are observed as being high.

The congress is organized around the main theme "Gendered Worlds: Gains and Challenges". This theme provides an opportunity for a broad reflection on the state of women and gender issues from a gendered perspective within the context of change. It enables discussions focused on both differences and similarities and offers positive pointers for future action for gender equity and equality. The Women's Worlds 2002 special focus areas will be the African perspective, young voices, gendering women and men, celebrating multiculturality and diversity and North - South perspectives. These focus areas will be reflected in the congress program themes.

DATE: FROM 27 JUNE TO 6 JULY 2001
LOCATION: PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

The National Organization for Women has declared a state of emergency to save women's rights to self-determination and reproductive freedom. NOW is calling on activists everywhere to take part in a national campaign which will kick off with an Emergency Action for Women's Lives in Washington, D.C. at 11am on Sunday, April 22.

In schools across South Africa, thousands of girls of every race and economic group are encountering sexual violence and harassment that impede their access to education, Human Rights Watch charged in a report released this week.

Women rights activists have protested against President Yoweri Museveni's
decision to ask Parliament to restore the electoral college system for
electing district women MPs.

"We strongly support universal adult suffrage and the secret ballot as modes
of electing district women representatives. We therefore object to the
presidential veto against this (electoral colleges) and call upon MPs to re-
affirm the position they adopted in the Parliamentary Elections Bill 2000,"
the Coalition for Political Accountability to Women (COPAW) said yesterday.
New Vision.

Countries that promote women's rights and increase their access to resources and schooling have lower poverty rates, faster economic growth and less corruption than countries that do not, says a recently published World Bank report, EnGendering Development - Through Gender Equality in Rights, Resources and Voice.

While girls are focusing more on their futures and are prepared to study
hard, boys are still adopting anti-work 'laddish' attitudes which hold back
their educational development, according to new ESRC-funded research.

The purpose of this position is to direct the new Women's Rights and Economic Change "theme program" as part of AWID's new Strategic Communications Program. The intended impact of the Strategic Communications Program is the improvement of women's lives through information exchange that will motivate action, support knowledge - building, and influence policy.

At last, there is succour for the women of Enugu State against harmful traditional practices. It will now be an offense for widows and women to be compelled to observe traditional rites that are physically, psychologically and emotionally hazardous to them.

Panafrican News Agency (Dakar) March 14, 2001 Ghana's Food and Drugs Board (FDB) on Wednesday said research has shown that "Always Sanitary Pads" used by women are not infected with the HIV/AIDS as claimed by a story circulated on the Internet.