While researchers and advocates at the International AIDS Conference this week urged donors and governments to rapidly scale up male circumcision programmes, others raised concerns about what this would mean for women. In March 2007, the World Health Organisation and UNAIDS issued recommendations that gave the green light to male circumcision as an HIV prevention strategy, after studies in Kisumu, Kenya and the township of Orange Farm in South Africa showed that it could reduce the risk of infection by up to 60 percent.

There are increasing numbers of single mothers in Kenya. Is it a sign of growing independence of women, or a consequence of poverty and lack of sexual education? Angelina Nandwa, the founder of the Single Mothers' Association of Kenya (Smak), says both are true. "The phenomenon is universal and pervasive in Kenya. It is not confined to one class, age-group or region. The causes as well as the consequences of being a single mother vary."

There is no explicit gay scene in Nigeria, but in the Ibiza bar in the capital, Abuja, the action on the packed dance floor seems a little more exclusively guy-on-guy, a little bit raunchier than may be considered "normal".

Assumptions of relating sexual abuse of same sex to homosexuality abound lately in South Africa where the public could not draw the difference. This comes in the wake of Tiny Virginia Makopo’s case of 29 July – recently postponed to Sebokeng Magistrates Court for October hearing this year – where the former dormitory matron at Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy pleaded not guilty on fourteen charges including assault, indecent assault, crimen injuria and indecent acts against young girls whom she had to fend for at the academy.

Just how challenging moves to have media houses adopt gender policies is going to be emerged at the GEM Summit when participants expressed concern over the cold reception the idea gets from media owners and managers across Southern Africa. Some participants who have been approaching media houses for information on women and men employees and employment practices within their newsroom, with a view of helping them develop a gender policy, are having a rough time.

Nearly a third of candidates in Angola's upcoming parliamentary elections are female, thanks to a new quota imposed by the government. The 30 percent rule was designed to bring more women into the country's parliament, but as campaigning gets under way, women continue to stay in Angola's political shadows, barely visible at rallies and with few holding senior party positions.

Southern African leaders should adopt the proposed Gender and Development Protocol at their upcoming summit after amending it to include crucial provisions deleted in 2007, Human Rights Watch has said. One of the most important provisions that should be put back in to the protocol would commit states to criminalize marital rape.

Kibera Women for Peace and Fairness is an organization that was started at the peak of the post-election violence that rocked our country early this year, after the disputed presidential votes. Kibera was one of the worst-hit areas, this being the constituency led by the current Kenyan Prime Minister, Hon. Raila Odinga. On August 16th, there will be a special activity called "The Slum Woman's Voice Day", to unite women in Kibera and to make us more visible to the world.

More than 50 women, some as young as 13 and others as old as 60, have been gang raped and tortured by government-backed militias in Zimbabwe because of their support for the opposition, rights groups and victims say.

here are twice as many "witch" murders in years of extreme rainfall, in certain parts of Tanzania, than in other years. The victims are nearly all elderly women, typically killed by relatives. Witchcraft beliefs are widely held throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, serve a variety of social purposes, and have not shown a tendency to lose salience.

Funding support for women’s organisations and for non-governmental organisations working to achieve gender equality is an important element in many donors strategies. These organisations often have detailed knowledge of social and cultural barriers to gender equality. They can also recognise and address the impact of gender inequalities at local, national and international level.

The Institute of Economic Affairs’ (IEA) latest report on the socio-economic status of women in Kenya says women have made minimal strides in their quest to bridge the inequality gap. However, this state of affairs is not blamed solely on women but on the prevailing political system.

The recent statement by the Minister for Lands, Hon. James Orengo that the National Land Policy is ready for cabinet deliberation and final approval is something that is overdue. But for the majority of Kenyan women who wallow in poverty and are destitute, the announcement has generated a lot of excitement as they have for a long time been culturally prohibited from inheriting this critical factor of production and source of wealth.

Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda led the Tanzanian National Assembly in signing onto UNIFEM's Say NO to Violence against Women campaign at a ceremony on 22 July 2008, which was witnessed by UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha Rose Migiro. The Speaker of the National Assembly Samwel Sitta, Deputy Speaker Anna Makinda, leader of the opposition Hamad Rashid Mohamed and all of the other MPs assembled followed the Prime Minister's lead, making the Tanzanian National Assembly the first parliamentary body in the world to offer its full support to the campaign.

The creation of a new UN agency for women would dramatically improve the international response to the AIDS pandemic, said AIDS-Free World at the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico. Until now, the UN response to women has been fragmented and incoherent. But UN Member States are poised to adopt a resolution at the 63rd session of the UN General Assembly this September to establish a new agency.

African Women’s Day gives us the opportunity to remember that gender-based violence is one of the most serious and widespread violations of the basic rights of women, particularly on the African continent. Gender discrimination is both one of the causes and an aggravating factor of the consequences of violence against women, thus contributing to the perpetuation of impunity of such cases.

The signatory organizations call on African States to ratify the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on women’s rights (the “Maputo Protocol”), harmonize national laws with international standards and take all necessary measures to fight against violence against women by tackling the general context of discrimination which encourages such violations and which perpetuates the marginalization of women, particularly as regards their access to justice.

In this context, the signatory organizations want to draw the African States’ attention to the need to tackle the general environment of discrimination, which leads to such violence against women, generally of a sexual nature, perpetrated by the State but also within the community or in the private sphere.

The Third International Congress on Islamic Feminism has been announced by Junta Islàmica Catalana (Catalonian Islamic Board). The conference will be focused on the problems of Muslim women in the Global era. Many Muslim women today are facing a double oppression: economic (neo-liberalism) and political (religious fundamentalism). The Congress will consider the responses given by Islamic feminists to this situation, and their contribution towards the construction of a new civil society worldwide, based on a culture of human rights and Qur'anic values such as democracy, social justice, freedom of conscience and gender equality.

African Women’s Day gives us the opportunity to remember that gender-based violence is one of the most serious and widespread violations of the basic rights of women, particularly on the African continent. Gender discrimination is both one of the causes and an aggravating factor of the consequences of violence against women, thus contributing to the perpetuation of impunity of such cases.

Doctors in Burkina Faso say fistula is being under-reported, and are launching a new project to offer free surgery to some of the affected women. According to the government’s statistics, there were just 54 cases of fistula in Burkina Faso in 2007. But Aboubakar Coulibaly, a doctor in the national health system, said “Cases are being under-reported.”

This year the world reaches an invisible but momentous milestone: for the first time in history, more than half its population will be living in urban areas. In Kenya, rapid urbanisation is creating deepening poverty among urban residents. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report 'State of the World Population' published last year, poor people will make up a large part of future urban growth.