The fight for resource control has led to the eruption and escalation of all manner of conflict and violence in the Niger Delta. It’s all about power and control in light of the oil revenue.

A Nigerian-born asylum seeker in the United Kingdom, John Abraham, was finally deported on Friday 16 March, despite the intervention of organisations that pursue LGBT migrants’ issues in the UK and across Europe. Prior to the deportation, Abraham was detained at the Coinbrook Immigration Removal Centre near Heathrow airport, West London and was initially due to be deported to Nigeria on 8 March.

Statement of Feminist and Women's Organisations on the very Limited and Concerning Results of the 56th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

Social policies and instruments will need to be developed to ensure that the Green Economy not only alleviates poverty and improves equity, but that the interests of the people who depend on Green Economy are deliberately safeguarded from the very outset.

In Cameroon’s Northwest region, citizens, organizations and local officials are taking part in campaigns and speaking out to encourage women to run for office in the legislative and municipal elections anticipated for this year. Though a date has yet to be set for the elections, International Women’s Day this month stirred up excitement for women’s campaigns.

Britain’s Kaleidoscope Trust has submitted its recommendations for changes to the Commonwealth Charter and called for an agreed timetable to end the criminalisation of LGBT people. The call came in response to a request by the Royal Commonwealth Society for proposals to amend the new draft Charter of the Commonwealth. Eighteen countries in Africa are currently part of the Commonwealth of Nations (with Zimbabwe having departed in 2003).

Four American cities are gearing up to host regional meetings of the World Court of Women on Poverty in the US Founded by Tunisian activist Corinne Kumar, the World Courts of Women (WCW) are public hearings featuring testimonies of survival and resistance from people on the margins. Since 1992, there have been 37 Courts in cities around the world, including the International Court of Women on Crimes Related to Population Policies in Cairo, Egypt in 1994; the World Court of Women against War, for Peace in Cape Town, South Africa in 2001; and the World Court of Women on U.S. War Crimes in Mumbai, India in 2004.

Uganda Universal Periodic Review session 19th Human Rights Council, Geneva, Switzerland. 16 March 2012.

Bilene Seyoum raises critical points concerning the safety of Ethiopian domestic workers in the Middle East, suggesting that governments in the region could be institutionalizing a form of modern day slavery.

The challenge of gender parity in South Sudan is less in the provisions of the constitution but more in implementation of the rights provided for at the state and local levels.

Simone, wife of President Laurent Gbagbo of Côte d’Ivoire, is a political prisoner. The only reason why she’s in prison today is because her husband was overthrown in a military coup by the forces of the man under whose order she’s currently languishing in jail. Simone didn’t commit any crime. Indeed she won her parliamentary seat handily in the 2010 elections, and unlike the presidential election, that election result wasn’t contested by opposing parties. As women around the world celebrate International Women’s Day, and given that the month of March is dedicated to attracting attention to women’s issues, one needs to ask why there’s silence from all quarters about the ignoble treatment Simone Gbagbo is being subjected to.

This page on the Women in Informal Employment: Globalising and Organising website explores the two-way linkages between informality and growth: the impact of the informal economy on economic growth, and the impact of economic growth on the informal economy. How much and in what ways does the informal economy contribute to economic growth? Or does the informal economy account for low productivity and low growth? Does the size of the informal economy shrink during economic growth and expand during economic slumps or downturns? Is it, in other words, counter-cyclical or pro-cyclical?

It has been reported frequently that clandestine homosexual groups exist in Addis Abeba, many of whom lead double lives, since being openly gay or lesbian could cost them their lives.

This handbook is a timely, illustrated and easy-to-read guide and resource material for journalists. It evolved primarily out of a desire to equip all journalists with more information and understanding of gender issues in their work. It is addressed to media organisations, professional associations and journalists’ unions seeking to contribute to the goal of gender equality.

The gist of the paper is how the World Development Report shows that the Bank now acknowledges that '...social and cultural factors make it difficult for women to participate with equal rights in the social and political life of their societies.' This statement isn't groundbreaking in itself, but it shows a sea change in how the World Bank thinks about women's equality. In the past, they viewed gender equality as a natural side effect of bringing greater prosperity to a region.

An armed group ambushed a public bus and killed 19 people in western Ethiopia region of Gambela, officials have confirmed. The Monday 12 March incident occurred some 20 kilometres from the regional capital, Gambela town. According to an eye witness, people armed with machine-guns, abducted five female passengers out of the 34, who were in the bus. Seven other people were severely wounded.

The struggle for justice, freedom, equality and dignity for all people especially working-class women and men requires leadership based on knowledge of history, politics, economics, science and culture. Historical knowledge is indispensable to constructing the traditions of progressive struggle for freedom and creating new generations of leaders to transform our world, write Thuto Thipe and Zackie Achmat on the blog Ndifuna Ukwazi, in a post that pays tribute to Black women who created a mass movement that came to build the best traditions of the ANC.

A military court in Egypt has acquitted an army doctor accused of carrying out forced 'virginity tests' on women protesters, state media reports. Ahmed Adel was cleared because the judge found contradictions in witness statements, the state news agency said. The case was brought by one of the women, Samira Ibrahim, who said the 'tests' took place after they had been detained during protests last year. Demonstrators gathered outside the court to protest against the ruling.

On the 50th anniversary of Kenya’s independence, many minority and indigenous communities feel that despite some constitutional gains, increased ethnicization of politics has deepened their exclusion, making their situation worse today than it was in 2005, a new Minority Rights Group International (MRG) report shows. The report titled 'Kenya at 50', reviews the current status of minority and indigenous groups in Kenya, particularly how legal and policy changes over the last five years have responded to the social, economic and political challenges confronting them. ‘Despite the adoption of the new Constitution in 2010, very little has changed in the way the Kenyan state approaches the question of minorities,’ says Marusca Perazzi, MRG’s Governance Programme Coordinator.

Why does the UN Security Council call for naming and shaming and then observe the omission of Zimbabwe without so much as a word? asks Stephen Lewis on International Women’s Day 2012. Lewis took part in an interactive panel discussion with the UN Human Rights Council titled 'Capitalizing on Women’s Potential in Times of Crisis'.