News
16 Days of Activism (2009) news
President Jacob Zuma on Tuesday announced new measures to expand South Africa's response to HIV/Aids.
Four years ago, at 16, Rana's husband forced her into prostitution. Despite the risks of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), Rana, like many local sex workers - estimated to number at least 6,000 - often did not use condoms.
While South Africa's HIV-infection rate may have stabilised, experts warn that the country's slow response to the pandemic has triggered a time bomb that may leave one in three children orphaned.
Rights activists are hoping a landmark announcement by the Czech government regretting forced sterilisation of Roma women in the past will push politicians in neighbouring Slovakia to follow suit.
Despite major advances in land distribution in Bolivia, single, widowed and undocumented women in this South American country have little chances of owning rural lands due to the patriarchal traditions and customary practices of indigenous peoples, in violation of international instruments and conventions protecting women’s rights.
According to IPS News, more than seven months after the Cape High Court ruled in favour of the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT), interdicting the police for harassment and arrests, sex workers are losing the daily battles against police and criminal elements on the streets.
Mauritania formally adopted the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women in 2001, but in the eight years since, it has had limited effect on the status of women. IPS interviewed Oumoulkhairy Kane, head of the Association for the Defence of Women's Rights in Mauritania.
According to IRIN News Health experts report a high rate of treponematosis among pregnant displaced women in conflict-hit Mindanao.
In some harassment cases, even the perpetrator and the person facing harassment may not be aware that what is happening is not okay, or that a crime has been committed. Sometimes he is not always aware of perpetrating a violation, and the woman may be left with an unsettling discomfort, but not be able to articulate exactly why she feels out of sorts. Therein lies the tragedy.
According to IPS News the Peruvian government is once again being called on to bring to justice the perpetrators of the Voluntary Surgical Contraception (VSC) programme carried out by the Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) regime, under which tens of thousands of women were forcibly sterilised. This time, the demand comes from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
"You don’t need to go far, it is all around us," said Robert Dijksterhuis, head of the gender division in the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to a room mostly full of women. "Up to one in three women around the world has been abused in some way - most often by someone she knows," he added, quoting UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) numbers.
According to IPS News group of workers in Honduras managed to prevent the closure of an assembly plant manufacturing sportswear for the U.S.-based sports apparel maker Russell Athletic, thereby saving 1,200 jobs.
Born in a squatter camp in Orlando East and raised by a single mother; working in a factory while completing secondary school by correspondence; arrested and banned by the apartheid government: South Africa's ambassador to Italy is an example of the long road her country has travelled. IPS News interviews Thenjiwe Mtintso.
On the 26th of November 2009 IPS News reported that social organisations in Guatemala are celebrating the entry into effect of a family planning law that will usher sex education into the country's classrooms and facilitate access to birth control methods, as a victory in the fight against the country's high birth and maternal and infant mortality rates.
Gender activists foresee a drop in female parliamentarians after Namibia’s general and presidential elections on November 27 and 28. It’s a trend that jeopardises the region’s goal of 50 percent female representation in politics by 2015.
