The debate over abortion has gone on for decades in Kenya as pro-life and pro-choice camps lock horns over the thorny issue of legalisation. But in the midst of the storm one scientist stands undeterred by attacks from opponents, firm in his resolve that every woman has the right to determine her own reproductive life. Talk about the ever-controversial subject, and Dr Solomon Orero will be happy to explain the surgical practice as well as the wider issue.

A woman who was denied asylum in the U.S. despite her fears that she would suffer additional female genital mutilation if she was deported to her native Mali has been given a second chance. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey - whose intervention was sought in a national campaign by women's and human rights groups has reversed a ruling by a federal immigration board that acknowledged that the woman's genitals had been cut as a child but said that while "reprehensible", the mutilation could not be repeated.

The controversial fatwa concerning underage marriage issued in Morocco by Cheikh Mohamed Ben Abderrahman Al Maghraoui will be the target of a new government inquiry, following a decision by the king's prosecutor in Rabat.

The Rwandan constitution, ratified in May 2003, states that 30 per cent of decision-making positions are to be reserved for women. This clause has seen Rwandan women make remarkable gains in elective politics. In the last parliament, Rwanda had the highest percentage of women in parliament in the world.

As the General Assembly meets to consider Africa’s development needs, gender experts are coming together at a United Nations-backed forum spotlighting the continent’s women, who are a vital part of efforts to achieve the global anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). “For millions of African women, hunger, violence, exclusion and discrimination are their everyday realities,” the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) – the lead agency for the forum – said in a news release.

Statistics from the Social Welfare Centre indicate that five percent of girls in Buea, Southwest Province, fail to go back to school at the beginning of every academic year due to pregnancy. The same situation cuts across the country, causing the termination of the educational career of most teenage girls, The Post gathered. The rise in pregnancy among teenage girls has been attributed to youthful excitement, especially during holidays.

International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), Kaduna branch, has said it would stamp out cases of rape and sexual abuse in the state. Kaduna State's Chairperson, Mrs Sa'adatu Sambo, said this in Kaduna, during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria.

Extreme incidents of violence in post-Colonial Africa have frequently been explained through the discourses of tribalism and ethnic hatred. A variant of this narrative is the obsession with Africa’s ‘failed’ and ‘collapsed’ states that are said to be paralysed by kinship and ethnicity-based patronage politics. However, systemic violence has far more entrenched structural causes and the scholarly eye searches for these underlying conditions.

Turmoil has erupted once again in Uganda as police clamp down on homosexuals in that country, which started this Monday 15 September. Two men have already been arrested and charged with ‘recruitment of homosexuals’, something which, according to Human Rights Watch, is not even a legislation in Uganda’s laws.

The South African Out in Africa Gay and Lesbian Film Festival ended last Sunday in Johannesburg with the Cape Town festival running until 21 September. The festival attracted at least about 300 members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community of different ages, races and class on the opening night.

George Oundo and Kiiza Brendah have been released from Nabweru Police Station where they were accused and apprehended for ‘recruiting people into homosexuality’.The two lesbian, gay, bieszexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) rights activists were arrested at Oundo’s home last week, and were deprived the right to appear in court within 48 hours as stipulated in that country’s constitution.

Zimbabwean women have experienced higher levels of trauma, including violence and lack of food, after the country's independence from Britain in 1980 than before. This is one of the findings of a study conducted by the civic movement Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) on trauma in the collapsing southern African state.

Algerian women do most of the work at home, and Ramadan is no exception. They go to work, shop, cook, and prepare the table for iftar. By end of the month, they are exhausted, but their work continues.

Rwanda is on course to become the first country in the world where women MPs outnumber men. The small central African country, known for one of the worst genocides of modern times, is now comparatively stable and the elections passed off peacefully. The head of the electoral commission, Chrysologue Karangwa, said: "We have not yet got full results, [but] it's clear women representatives will be more than 50 per cent."

More than 800,000 people are in dire need of humanitarian assistance in Haiti in the wake of hurricanes Fay and Gustav and tropical storm Hanna. Houses, medical facilities, main roads and bridges have been destroyed, and an estimated 100,000 people have sought refuge in temporary shelters.

Gender training as a concrete mechanism for building capacity for gender mainstreaming, and a way to make development cooperation more inclusive and responsive, has been implemented - from differing perspectives, with differing methodologies, and with varying levels of commitment - since the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995.

What can a mother of six do when her husband’s sporadic contributions to the household run dry? Thirty-five-year-old Amina created a job — an extraordinary achievement for a previously unemployed woman living in Djougou in northwest Benin. A micro loan from a local organisation helped her create a successful business. Today she is selling cooked rice at the nearby school. One day, Amina says, she will open a restaurant.

It is with much interest that the women’s network of IANSA followed the different interventions presented since the beginning of this meeting. This is an opportunity to advance the application of the Program of Action for the control of small arms and light weapons, in all its aspects, including gender violence.

The illicit use of small arms includes the offences of domestic violence as well as sexual violence against women.

It is recognized that women are less able to resist or to escape, and even less able to receive help from others, and thus to survive, a crime committed with a firearm.

Incidents of domestic violence involving firearms cause as many problems as violence perpetrated in the streets, and their number increases during and after armed conflicts, due to the illegal circulation of these arms in the community.

Joyce and Tanya - two women of different ages, nationalities, cultures and religions - share something: both became victims of a missing goal. Combating violence against women is what Inés Alberdi, executive director of the U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), calls the missing goal, because it is not an issue addressed by the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

In May 2008, a group of civil society activists launched a campaign to reform Kenya's archaic abortion laws, sparking a countrywide debate. Now, as a new draft bill on women's reproductive health and rights seeking to decriminalise abortions is set to be tabled in parliament, the battle lines between opponents and advocates of abortion are clearly drawn.