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A specialist in early childhood education in Oslo is giving new meaning to the term "sexual games," and stirring widespread debate.

Norwegians woke up Tuesday morning to news that a respected Oslo pre-school teacher, backed by child psychologists, thinks children should be allowed to openly express their own sexuality, not least through sex play and games in the local day care centers known as barnehager, or kindergartens.

Child rights advocacy groups will be lobbying for a change in certain aspects of the new Sexual Offences Act, through either case law or amendments.

But they point out that for the change to take place through amendments, there would have to be political will.

The Act, which was passed on December 13, makes changes to the definition of what constitutes rape and includes a sexual offender register, but child rights groups say the Act has done little to increase protective measures available in the court system.

Cuban society's traditionally chauvinistic and homophobic nature is little by little opening up to sexual diversity -a fact largely disavowed until quite recently- to the point that some strings are being pulled to give its acceptance a legal character.

Seen for centuries as the "right" rule of conduct, heterosexuality has lost ground to other sexual preferences and behaviors which turn-of-the- century Cuba can no longer deny.

Homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals and transvestites are all an increasingly visible sector, yet to be absorbed by mainstream society but partly tolerated, if not accepted, in academic, university and cultural circles, as well as among people sensitized to this issue.

This Gender policy  aims to combine the vision and principles that COSATU aspires towards, with practical relations in the working workplace and economy, in trade unions and in broader society. The Doucment is a policy framework to guide COSATU's efforts to transform gender relations.  This policy document was debated and adopted and the National Gender Conference (held on 5-7 July 2000).

This paper was presented by Commissioner Themba Kgasi at the North West Province Gender Forum meeting in June 2003. The paper highlights the different aspects and responsibilities of South Africa's national gender machinery. It provides a useful background to the establishment of the machinery and it's parts.

Millions of girls are not making it into school, despite a concerted international movement to push the cause forward. In some African countries, the gender gap is even widening. What's gone wrong? In Ethiopia, girls are sometimes abducted for marriage when they're no more than eight. In West Africa, they're recruited from poor rural families to work as domestics in coastal cities or neighbouring countries. In South Africa, a recent report by Human Rights Watch warns that sexual violence and abuse is hampering girls' access to education. And in Afghanistan, they've simply been barred from school under the Taleban regime.
Customs, poverty, fear and violence: girls still account for 60 percent of the estimated 113 million out-of-school children, and the majority live in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Slowly, but effectively, the Internet is empowering women in Africa to follow events as they have never witnessed before. The latest case in point is the women in Somalia who have been following their country's peace talks in neighbouring Kenya via Internet usage.

"The power of the media to make and unmake the image of women, to hasten or retard the progress of women in society, cannot be denied or underestimated" (Ogundipe-Leslie, nd:55). However, since the 1980's, when the roles of African women have been undergoing a fundamental change to increased participation in the political, social and economic sectors of society, the tendency of the media has been to ignore or distort these significant events. In fact, in the first United Nation's document recognising the media as a "critical area of concern" for women, the media are listed as one of ten major obstacles to women's advancement" (Ziyambi,1997:1).

In highlighting this rather polemic insight, this essay attempts to go further and grapple with defining and understanding the underlying relationship between the media and gender issues, primarily in Africa. The study will include gender formation, media content and portrayal of women, employment patterns, SADC media policy on gender and, suggestions for the media on gender reporting.

At the outset, it is necessary to provide a theoretical framework for the discussion by listing and discussing the three various types of media including mainstream, alternative and folk media, in terms of their relationship to gender issues. The concepts of sex and gender, which are critical to such a research, will then be outlined.

The PEI Advisory Council on the Status of Women released a policy document today that examines the issue of women's unpaid work and makes recommendations for change.  The release of this policy document reflects the Advisory Council's concern about the continuing inequities that result from the undervaluing of women's unpaid work.