Cases of anxiety and depression, two leading mental health illnesses, are on the rise among women in some African countries, thanks to the current difficulties in the economy, gender roles and violence, writes Arthur Okwemba. Findings of study done at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi by the African Mental Health Foundation shows that 42% of adults and 41% of children who went to the facility were diagnosed with depression. This likely reflects what is happening in other African countries.

In celebration of International Women's Day, 8 March 2010, the Feminist Tech Exchange (FTX) is launching its new website - The FTX is both a training initiative for women's rights advocates and a community of feminist and technology activists. The FTX was developed by the Association for Progressive Communications Women's Networking Support Programme (APC WNSP) in response to calls from feminist and women's rights movements for greater understanding of emerging technologies, their potential and impact on the rights and lives of women.

While Zambia undergoes a Constitution Review Process, the gay community in that country has been dealt a severe blow by the National Constitutional Conference (NCC)’s decision to adopt a clause that prohibits marriage between people of the same sex.

While gay rights are slowly expanding around the world, including in Africa, human rights activists note some political, media and religious leaders are leading sometimes violent campaigns in the opposite direction. Activists say they feel the tradition of tolerance no longer applies to homosexuals in that West African nation.

Pregnancy is the leading cause of dropouts for school girls in Tanzania. And a national law forbidding young mothers to return to school after giving birth did not make it any easier for them to continue their education. But thanks to pressure from the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), the Tanzania government has now adopted a new law that allows young mothers to continue their education at their former schools.

Whenever gender empowerment is a vibrant topic of discussion internationally, some of the countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America are invariably singled out for their success stories in politics, education, health care or civil liberties even as Africa is mostly left out of political reckoning - and wrongly so.

With the 15th-year review of the 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women taking place at the ongoing Commission on the Status of Women in New York, South African teachers and education experts say they fear that a special focus on the advancement of girls is getting lost amidst the growing levels of poverty in the country.

This week, the US State Department is honoring Ann with the 2010 International Women of Courage Award. With this award the US government pays tribute to outstanding women leaders worldwide, recognizing the courage they've shown as they struggle for social justice and human rights. In over a decade as a women's rights activist, nobody deserves this award more than Ann Njogu, writes Janet Walsh.

Hundreds of women have taken to the streets of Nigeria's capital, Abuja, and the central city of Jos in rallies against Sunday's massacre near Jos. The women, mostly dressed in black, demanded that the government protect women and children better.

This 8 March marked 100 years since Clara Zetkin first proposed the annual International Women’s Day (IWD) at the International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen, a motion unanimously approved by over 100 women from 17 countries, writes Rosemary Okello-Orlale. When IWD was honoured for the first time the following year, more than one million women and men attended rallies campaigning for women's rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination.

Domestic workers around the world are organizing to challenge the harsh, abusive, often slave-like conditions in which they work. They are organizing unions and support networks, and they are mobilizing in support of an international Convention that will finally recognize them as workers and establish their rights in international law.

Featuring Norah Matovu-Winyi, Monica Amollo and Pollyne Owoko, of a United Nations 'global conversation' video-stream on women's rights, gender equality and maternal health. Drawing on their experiences as gender activists, the participants discuss the women's movement, meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the future challenges for achieving sexual equality in Kenya.

‘Please tell me how we address this patriarchal society and how we can reach a point where women are superior’ is what one young girl from an impoverished school in Zimbabwe replied when asked what she thought was standing in the way of her dreams of a trail-blazing career. ‘She’s going to need that kind of bull-headed feistiness to move herself forward in her life’, writes Sokwanele’s Hope, ‘especially if she stays in our country’. It is voices like those of this young girl, says Hope, that will help silence the few who seek to ‘preserve the status quo by denying rights to others'.

This International Women's Day, we not only mark the 3 year anniversary of the Women WON'T wait. End HIV and Violence Against Women. NOW. campaign, but also reflect on where we are since the historic 4th World Conference on Women in 1995. The Beijing Platform of Action contained milestone commitments to the world’s women, such as the possibility of a future where it was possible to end all forms of violence against women; women’s poverty and our unequal share of caring work within and outside the home; as well as socio-cultural discrimination, sexual disciplining, and political exclusions of various categories of people, including women.

UNESCO and the African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET) are organizing a roundtable discussion during which the book Freedom of Information (FOI) and Women’s Rights in Africa will be launched. The meeting will take place at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on 16 March 2010 to explore the links between enhanced information flows, women’s empowerment and gender equality, and to promote stronger involvement by women organizations in advancing freedom of information in Africa.

A husband and wife can keep separate homes, but only with the husband’s approval. A divorcée can keep her ex-husband’s name – if he agrees. A girl should be able to marry at 15. These and a dozen other changes to the family code are being proposed by Mali’s top Islamic council, even though they were blocked last August after strong opposition from some Muslim leaders.

Women & Mobile: A Global Opportunity is a study on the mobile phone gender gap in low and middle-income countries. The study report was launched at the Mobile World Congress by Rob Conway, CEO of the GSM Association (GSMA), Cherie Blair, Founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women and Brooke Partridge, CEO of Vital Wave Consulting. The Mobile World Congress was held in Barcelona, Spain, from 15 - 18 February 2010.

About 27 students, suspended from UMthwalume high school, on suspicion that they are homosexuals, have been allowed back in school. This was a result of a meeting between parents of suspended learners, the school governing body and the Department of Education of Ugu Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal

The opening of an exhibition by young, black women artists at Constitution Hill turned sour when Arts and Culture Minister Lulu Xingwana stormed out of the exhibition, calling the work "immoral". Xingwana, whose department gave R300,000 to the Innovative Women exhibition, which was launched in Johannesburg to coincide with Women's Day last August, left before she was due to speak at the opening.

Kenyan women are becoming infected with HIV during pregnancy at very high rates, and repeat testing prior to delivery, or at the earliest possible opportunity after birth, should be encouraged in order to reduce mother-to-child transmission, Kenyan researchers reported last week at the 17th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in San Francisco.