Gender activists have won a significant battle in their quest for more women representation in government with the final unveiling of President Goodluck Jonathan’s cabinet. Of the 40 ministers, 13 are women, a major milestone in the campaign for more involvement of women in governance. The number of female appointees in the cabinet represents about 31 per cent of the 42-member cabinet.

Ethel James cannot wait for the gravity-fed water scheme in her area to be fixed so that she and the other women in her village will no longer have to wake up before dawn everyday to queue for water. She is part of the team of local villagers repairing the existing water system, which consists of a pipeline connected to a reservoir. At various points in the village are taps connected to the pipeline, but there is no running water just yet.

The National HIV/Aids Secretariat of Sierra Leone, which falls under the National HIV/Aids Control Program (NACP) recently conducted a study on Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) around the country. The 2011 study on MSM in Sierra Leone has broken the silence on the existence of sexual minorities in Sierra Leone. Findings from this survey revealed several problems affecting sexual minorities, especially MSM in Sierra Leone.

Equality Now in conjunction with Solidarity for African Women’s Rights (SOAWR) is delighted to announce the release of 'A Guide to Using the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa for Legal Action'. The release of this manual comes five years after the Protocol came into force. 'We hope African lawyers and women’s rights advocates find the manual useful and it gives them hands-on guidance on how best to apply the remarkable standards of the Protocol in cases of violations of women’s rights,' said Faiza Jama Mohamed, Nairobi Office Director of Equality Now, which convenes SOAWR, a coalition of 37 civil society organisations working to ensure that the Women’s Protocol is ratified and implemented across the continent.

The media circus surrounding the Dominique Strauss-Kahn rape case dishes out more drama each day, with a side of lurid fascination. But we basically know how the story ends. The narrative of the immigrant housekeeper allegedly assaulted by a European official perfectly illustrates an axiom of violence and power: the wider the gap between genders and races, the greater the latitude of injustice, states this article from

'Women and Food Sovereignty: The voices of rural women from the south' provides an overview of the situation of peasant women in the Global South. The document showcases the problems faced by these women, as well as their different forms of resistance and struggle in demand for food sovereignty. It includes testimonies of rural women from Africa, Latin America and Asia. They explain why it is necessary to struggle for access to land, for the conservation of seeds and for small-scale farming.

As part of contributing to the African Women’s Decade (2010-2020) through provision of information on the themes of the Decade, the African Women’s Journal for July-December 2011 will focus on the theme: Women’s Education and Training in Africa.

Following a hearing before an British immigration judge, Tanzanian gay asylum seeker Edson 'Eddy' Cosmas was released from Harmondsworth Removal Centre at 5pm and was also removed from the 'detained fast track' process. The judge's decision has not been written but a witness at the court hearing said that it was on the basis that previous immigration judiciary decisions could be regarded as possibly 'unsafe' and that more time was needed for both a psychiatrist's report as well as for an expert witness of the situation of LGBT in Tanzania to be found.

Surgeons say there are no statistics on cosmetic surgery in Kenya, a country where half the population lives at or below the poverty line. But among higher-earning women here, tummy tucks and breast reductions are on the rise, according to surgeons interviewed for this story. Sue, who declined to give her last name to protect her privacy, is in her 40s and has one child. She says that after years of emotional abuse from her husband, she paid $5,500 to have a tummy tuck and a breast lift to boost her self-esteem.

On 9 July 2011 the world witnessed the birth of a nation - South Sudan, Africa’s 54th country. In an interview with UN Women, South Sudan’s Minister of Gender, Child and Social Welfare Agnes Lasuba weighs in on the country’s independence and what it means for women. 'The women of South Sudan played various roles to achieve independence. During war they picked up arms. Others were mobilisers and others were taking care of the wounded, the sick and the elderly. And others were yearning for peace and they took it upon themselves to lobby other people and other countries, so that there could be peace for them and for their children,' says Lasuba in the interview.

The Kenyan government is taking steps to incorporate screening for cervical cancer - one of the biggest killers of women of child-bearing age - into HIV care, but health workers say low awareness means the uptake of this vital service is low. Studies show that HIV infection increases women's risk of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, a leading cause of cervical cancer. Cervical cancer screening is included as part of routine care for HIV-positive women under the country's national guidelines for HIV care. However, screening levels remain low; according to the UN World Health Organisation, just 3.2 per cent of Kenyan women aged 18-69 are screened for cervical cancer every three years, compared with 70 per cent of women in the developed world.

While in New York to celebrate the launch of UN Women's flagship biennium publication, 'Progress of the World's Women: In Pursuit of Justice', Botswana's Unity Dow sat down with IPS to discuss the United Nations' newest entity, its landmark report, and the road ahead for women. Dow is a lawyer, human rights activist, and formerly Botswana's first female judge. She has studied both within Africa and abroad, and has authoured five books. She is serving her second term as commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists, and is chairperson of their Executive Committee.

Violence against women is rampant, devastating and tolerated in South Sudan and the new country needs to address these gross human rights violations and train people, especially soldiers, to respect women’s rights. This is according to rights activists in the country. 'I have worked with many women and girls who have been abused. They are beaten by their husbands, raped by the rebel soldiers and they suffer in silence,' says Loise Joel, a human rights activist who runs the non-governmental organisation Human Rights for the Vulnerable, in Central Equatorial State in South Sudan.

The government of Equatorial Guinea’s ratification of the African Union Protocol on the Rights of Women is a potentially important step toward gender equality in Equatorial Guinea, but to be meaningful it must be followed by concrete reforms designed to promote and protect the economic, political, and social rights of women, EG Justice said. Equatorial Guinea became the 31st African Union member country to ratify the Protocol, also known as the Maputo Protocol. It guarantees the equal rights of women to political participation, economic and social equality, reproductive rights, and an end to genital mutilation. Despite existing laws intended to forbid domestic violence and defend women’s rights, to date the Equatoguinean government has failed to consistently safeguard and advance the rights of women.

In a historic gathering, more than a hundred women from seven continents representing more than 40 women’s organisations worldwide attended the first general assembly of International Women’s Alliance (IWA) in Manila early this month. With the theme 'Advance global anti-imperialist women’s movement in the 21st century, strengthen the international women’s alliance', progressive women from 20 countries vowed to fight imperialist attacks against women’s rights and welfare.

A married couple in the US pleaded guilty in federal court to exploiting an African woman and forcing her to work for them, authorities said. The woman, from Swaziland, was invited to travel to the United States and work as a caterer for a wedding. The wedding never existed. Instead, the woman was harboured in a home, concealed from law enforcement detection and kept working as a housekeeper until early 2007. 'This case reminds us that modern day slavery is occurring in our communities,' United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said. Last month, a Nigerian citizen in Atlanta was convicted for trafficking women from Nigeria to work as nannies.

Mother of eight, Jessicah Foni, 36, hopes that independence will mean a hospital will soon be built in her village. Foni, who has travelled from a remote village in South Sudan to the state’s capital to celebrate independence, lost two babies at birth because of the lack of medical facilities in her area. South Sudan has one of the highest maternal and child mortality rates in the world. Out of 100,000 live births, 2,054 women die.

More countries have gender equality legislation on their books than ever before but many laws are inadequate and rarely if ever enforced, the first major report by the new UN women’s agency showed on Wednesday. While equality between women and men is guaranteed in the constitutions of 139 countries and territories, the report titled 'Progress of the World’s Women: In Pursuit of Justice' paints a picture of a world in which statutes have little impact on women’s lives. 'In rich and poor countries alike, the infrastructure of justice – the police, the courts and the judiciary – is failing women, which manifests itself in poor services and hostile attitudes from the very people whose duty it is to meet women’s rights,' the report said.

Women in minority and indigenous communities are especially vulnerable to wide-ranging forms of violence, abuse and discrimination, according to a new report released by Minority Rights Group International (MRG), a human rights group that works on behalf of minorities and indigenous peoples. The disproportionate levels of abuse and discrimination that these women face - including rape, other forms of sexual violence, and trafficking, from government forces, paramilitaries, or members of their own communities - can be attributed to the fact that their identity exists at the intersection of two rather marginalised groups, women and minorities, making them easy targets.

In line with its mandate to promote high-level scientific and academic debates on various aspects of socioeconomic development in Africa, the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) hereby announces the 2011 edition of its Gender Symposium which will be held from 1st to 3rd November, 2011 in Cairo, Egypt. The Gender Symposium is a forum organized annually by CODESRIA to discuss gender issues in Africa, and the theme of this year’s edition is Gender and the Media in Africa.