''The rebel leader asked me two things: 'Do you want us to be your husbands? Or do you want us to rape you?'. "Congolese mother-of-eight Clementine speaks in a quiet and hesitant voice: "I chose to be raped." She explains: "I told myself, if I tell them that I want to be their wife, they will kill my husband. I didn't want my children growing up saying the one that made our father die is our mother."

Moremi Initiative proudly announces the 2010 MILEAD Fellows. The MILEAD Fellows were chosen through a highly competitive selection process and criteria, including their outstanding leadership promise, community service accomplishments and commitment to the advancement of women in Africa. The 25 selected fellows are some of Africa’s most extra-ordinary young women leaders with the courage and commitment to lead and shape the future of their communities and Africa as a whole.

After more than a decade of volunteer work in Angola's rural Matala district in the southern province of Huila, a Finnish doctor is seeing maternal mortality rates gradually come down in a country where about one in every 70 women dies in childbirth. Since 1998 Birgitta Long has spent three months each year working as a volunteer in a run-down clinic handicapped by staff and skills shortages, and which battles to source emergency medicines, but she sees the growing queue of women coming for medical help as a step in the right direction.

For four days from March 31, fifteen women gathered at the Feminist Tech Exchange in the Brazzaville (Congo) Digital Campus. Participants and trainers alike came from human and women’s rights organisations, the media and politics to learn more about how to use technology to end violence against women and girls.

The Malawi Law Society (MLS), a constitutionally-recognised body that represents the interests of lawyers and the legal profession in Malawi, has called for the immediate release on bail of Malawi's incarcerated first openly gay couple, saying the society does not pose a danger to them and vice versa. In a statement published in the local media, MLS Secretary Jabber Alide was quoted as saying the two - like all accused persons in Malawi - should be presumed innocent until proved otherwise by the court of law.

Not only do women experience a higher rate of unemployment compared to men, but women also make up about two of every three discouraged work seekers. The recent economic crisis has also disproportionately affected women, with the number of females who are no longer economically active rising sharply between 2008 and 2009.

Official results of Mauritius's most recent elections released on 6 May 2010 shows a 0.5% decrease in women's representation in parliament, sliding from 17.1% to 16.6%. Unless this situation is corrected with the best loser system, Mauritius will follow the trend of gender losses in two Southern African countries that had elections in 2009, Botswana and Namibia.

Grateful for Beth Maina and Cenya Ciyendi’s ‘words of wisdom’, Zawadi Nyong'o writes that if the Kenyan government ‘would only spend all the resources it does on post-abortion care, on sex education and safe abortions, we would actually begin to start saving the lives of thousands of women, and indeed unborn children in Kenya.’

Samir Bergachi is unstoppable. Barely 23 years old, the young Moroccan is simply not content to live his homosexuality openly in a country where it is considered as a crime. For the past 6 years, Samir has been running the first Moroccan gay association, kif-kif. And only a month ago, he caused a real stir: the launching of Mithly, the first gay magazine in the Arab world. Some find his initiatives inadmissible. Others admire his courage.

Northmead Assemblies of God Bishop Joshua Banda has advised the donor community to channel their funds to development programmes rather than supporting practises such as homosexuality that are alien to the Zambian society. And Bishop Joe Imakando of Bread of Life Church International said homosexuals and lesbians had no room in society because Zambia had been declared a Christian nation.

A United Nations-backed pilot programme that supplies electric generators to rural women farmers in Burkina Faso, freeing them from lengthy chores so that they can devote more time to education, childcare and health care, is to be adopted on a national scale.

The world’s media eyes will soon squarely focus on South Africa, with millions from across the globe tuning in via multimillion-dollar broadcasts. Yet, as Deborah Walter points out, even as the international media and big broadcasters move in, and journalists descend from all over the world, in South Africa, like much of Africa, community radio is still a key source of information and news for many communities, linking local activities and issues with international perspectives.

South Africa has one of the highest rates in the world of unemployment for comparable middle-income countries. The latest official statistics show that by December 2009, around 4,2 million people, out of a total labour force of 17 million, were officially unemployed. Yet, this figure does not include almost two million individuals who have simply lost hope of ever finding a job. For women, the situation is nothing but drastic, writes Kimani Nding'u.

Josephine Awuor, 34, always looks forward to her turn to receive "merry-go-round" contributions from fellow members of Msingi Bora (Good Foundation), a micro-finance group she belongs to in Kibera, Nairobi's largest slum. Meeting weekly, the 23 Msingi Bora members each contribute 50 shillings (60 US cents), which is pooled for members to take loans from. At each meeting, the members also contribute 20 shillings (26 US cents) each - to be given to one member in what they term their "merry-go-round" as they draw lots to determine the order of receiving the money.

Two out of three gay South African respondents to an online survey said that going online had helped them accept their sexual orientation and many admitted to coming out online before they did so offline. But the voices of transgender people rarely appear in studies and surveys.

The homosexual movement in Malawi was dealt a heavy blow at the weekend when President Bingu wa Mutharika condemned the act, describing it as foreign and un-African. President Mutharika made the scathing remarks during the consecration of a Roman Catholic Bishop at Limbe Cathedral in Blantyre, Malawi’s commercial city.

Cultural leaders in the country have, for the first time, spoken out on the contentious Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009, urging the MPs to pass it in order to safeguard the country’s values and traditions. Under their umbrella body, ‘Forum for Kings and Cultural Leaders in Uganda,’ the custodians of culture expressed anger with the way western countries have put the government on pressure to throw out the Bill.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is “the rape capital of the world”, a senior UN official has said. Margot Wallstrom, the UN’s special representative on sexual violence in conflict, urged the Security Council to punish the perpetrators in DR Congo.

It began as a rumour and, having gathered legs, is now about to become viral. Earlier this month, Sani Yerima, the fifty-something year-old, former two-term Governor of Zamfara State and serving Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria reportedly took a fourth wife. Ordinarily, it should be no news that another African man from Nigeria has married a fourth wife. The circumstances of this reported marriage are extraordinary. According to the story, Senator Sani Yerima first divorced his fourth wife, who, after nearly two years of marriage and a baby, is still a teenager and well below voting age in Nigeria.

South Africa has one of the highest rates in the world of unemployment for comparable middle-income countries, writes Kimani Ndungu, with the latest official statistics showing that by December 2009, around 4.2 million people out of a total labour force of 17 million were officially unemployed. But this figure does not include almost 2 million individuals who have simply lost hope of ever finding a job. For women, says Ndungu, the situation is nothing but drastic.