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Malawi’s Women Seek Cultural Rights Changes

Malawi’s Women Seek Cultural Rights Changes
Published date: 
6 Apr 2012

Last February, women in South Africa marched to reclaim taxi ranks in Johannesburg following an incident where 2 young women were harassed for wearing mini-skirts. Bhatupe Mhango reflects on the situation of women's rights in Malawi after a very similar incident occured in her country.


Women’s rights activists in Malawi say despite laws that protect them on paper, there are still societal barriers that treat women as second class citizens.

Bhatupe Mhango, a Malawi human rights worker now based in Liberia, said during one recent incident, women wearing skirts and shorts were molested and harassed by vendors.  She said this highlights the obstacles facing the country’s females on a daily basis.

“They [activists] are really asking for society to change their attitudes, their mindsets on how women are perceived in society as a whole,” said Mhango.

Market Photo Workshop: Call for Applications: Tierney Fellowship

Application Deadline: 
25 Apr 2012

The Market Photo Workshop in partnership with the Tierney Family Foundation realise the importance of creating opportunities for photographers to cultivate the development of photographers and photography as a medium. The Tierney Fellowship creates an ideal space for a photographer to produce a new body of work.

The Market Photo Workshop in partnership with the Tierney Family Foundation invites applications for the Tierney Fellowship.

Zaphamban’ izindlela!

Published date: 
4 Apr 2012

What happens when a corrupt old policeman and a market woman switch bodies? The latest in the "Crossroads" series hit the airwaves for Women’s Month in South Africa. CMFD produced the isiZulu, South African adaptation for People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA), supported by Oxfam GB. Previously produced in English, Swahili, French and Portuguese, the drama uses humour to get people thinking, and talking, about women’s rights. POWA is facilitating discussion groups, listening on stations such as Alex FM, Kasie FM, Eldoz FM and Ndofaya FM.

 

The story...
When a market trader becomes frustrated with the local police inspector who is more interested in lining his pockets than finding her missing daughter, a magic drink  provided by the local alcohol brewer causes the trader and police inspector to switch bodies. Each has the opportunity to see how the other gender lives! - with hilarious results and eye-opening perspectives. All the while, the search for the missing woman continues - will she be found in time?

From COP17 to Rio + 20 for South African community media journalists: Where is the voice of women in Climate change reporting?

From COP17 to Rio + 20 for South African community media journalists: Where is the voice of women in Climate change reporting?
Published date: 
26 Mar 2012

Women’sNet and The Media Development & Diversity Agency are proud to present a meerting we are calling ‘The Johannesburg Agreement’, the second phase of a series of workshops to train women journalists from community media (Radio and TV) in the practice of online and mobile citizen journalism in the wake of the COP17 conference and the Climate Change phenomena. The first phase was held in Durban between 28 November and 9 December 2011, a series of activities were facilitated around the COP17 conference, with the aim of empowering women to produce information that offers an alternative to mainstream media coverage. Female journalists working for registered community and small commercial radio stations and television have been invited to participate in The Johannesburg Agreement.

The initiative was developed following the women and media and environment conference organised by the department of environmental affairs in August of 2011 to engage community media with regards to COP17. This conference came twelve years after the adoption of the Kyoto protocol, and was seen as critical milestone to getting parties to sign an agreement that will see lowering of carbon emissions in the world. Our interest as a collective was on telling the story of how climate change affects OUR communities, and in particular women who work on the land and depend on it for their families’ livelihood.

Getting the balance right: gender equality in journalism

Getting the balance right: gender equality in journalism
Published date: 
26 Mar 2012

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.

Mapping Digital Media: Digital Media, Conflict and Diasporas in the Horn of Africa

Published date: 
26 Mar 2012

The Horn of Africa is one of the least connected regions in the world. Nevertheless, digital media play an important social and political role in Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia (including South-Central Somalia and the northern self-declared independent Republic of Somaliland). This paper shows how the development of the internet, mobile phones, and other new communication technologies have been shaped by conflict and power struggles in these countries.

It addresses some of the puzzles that characterize the media in the region: for example, how similar rates of penetration of media such as the internet and mobile phones have emerged in Somalia, a state which has not had a functioning government for two decades, and in Ethiopia, one of the countries with the most pervasive and centralized political apparatus in Africa.

Mozambique: The People's Wall of Maputo

Mozambique: The People's Wall of Maputo
Published date: 
26 Mar 2012

At the same time that we increasingly see the advance of new technologies which facilitate communication and information, such as smartphones, tablets, Twitter and Facebook, in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, the People's Wall has emerged: the extensive outer wall of the building housing newspaper Jornal@Verdade [pt], where the population can write letters and direct reflections to the governing leaders.

It is an original form of communication, whose effectiveness and accessibility are inherent in its very simplicity. In a way, it acts as an authentic ”offline Facebook wall”, as conceived of in the blog Menina do Javali:

The idea of the Wall was to create a permanent and offline space for readers to read (simple) and to comment (simple).

A critique of the World Bank's 2012 gender report

Published date: 
26 Mar 2012

The 2012 WDR reflects a conceptual shift in how the World Bank views women's rights, but will the Bank put its conclusions into practice?

The World Bank's 2012 World Development Report: Gender Equality and Development, is 458 pages long. By contrast, the German Development Institute's critique of the World Development Report is a 4 page brief, but these pages have punch.

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.

Reporters Without Borders: Beset by online surveillance and content filtering, netizens fight on

Reporters Without Borders: Beset by online surveillance and content filtering, netizens fight on
Published date: 
26 Mar 2012

This report, which presents the 2012 list of countries that are “Enemies of the Internet” and “under surveillance,” updates the report published on 12 March 2011 by Reporters Without Borders.

The last report, released in March 2011 at the climax of the Arab Spring, highlighted the fact that the Internet and social networks have been conclusively established as tools for protest, campaigning and circulating information, and as vehicles for freedom. In the months that followed, repressive regimes responded with tougher measures to what they regarded as unacceptable attempts to “destabilize” their authority. In 2011, netizens were at the heart of the political changes in the Arab world and elsewhere. They tried to resist the imposition of a news and information blackout but paid a high price.

Transforming Economic Power to Advance Women’s Rights and Justice, the 12th AWID International Forum

Date of event: 
19 April 2012 - 22 April 2012

Transforming Economic Power to Advance Women’s Rights and Justice, the 12th AWID International Forum, will gather up to 2000 women’s rights leaders and activists from around the world from April 19 to 22, 2012 at the Halic Congress Center in Istanbul, Turkey.