Mali: Family Law Rolls Back Women's Rights

Mali's President Amadou Toumani Toure has signed a new family law after it was revised due to pressure from Muslim groups to cut out sections providing for greater women's freedoms. (Photo courtesy Tugela Ridley/IRIN)

Most informal traders across Africa are women and their interests must be addressed, delegates to a gender summit told the African Union. (Photo courtesy Richard Duncombe)

Delegates who recently attended a gender summit in Addis Ababa hope the African Union Summit on Intra-African Trade that was also held there will take their recommendations into account to benefit the continent's women.

Delegates to the 19th Gender is My Agenda Pre-Summit Consultation on Gender Mainstreaming urged member states to identify the scope of the informal sector in Africa and to recognise women's active role in cross-border trade when calculating national GDP. More »


South Sudan: Women Face Multiple Risks

Mothers and their children from near Pibor, in Jonglei State, South Sudan, have been displaced by recent ethnic tensions in this area. (Photo courtesy Isaac Billy)

Women's Banks Ease Tough Times

For most Ugandan women, obtaining a commercial loan to start a business has been very difficult. (Photo courtesy IRIN)

Uganda: Disabled and Poverty-Stricken, the Sad Reality of FGM

(file photo) A woman prepares food to be sold. Female circumcision, often referred to as female genital mutilation, affects an estimated 92 million girls in Africa aged 10 and above. In Uganda, the practice was officially banned in 2009 but it is still practiced in rural areas. (Photo courtesy Manoocher Deghati/IRIN)

Kenya: Male Circumcision - Women Need Counseling Too

A small Kenyan study has found that more women than men feel HIV is a less serious threat after their male partners are circumcised; the study also made local news for finding that female partners of recently circumcised men found sex more enjoyable. (Photo courtesy IRIN)

Climate Change and Human Rights

Mary Robinson with healthworker Nadhifa Ibrahim Mohamed. Mohamed has worked in Trócaire's Dollow Health Centre in Somalia for three years and is a certified midwife. (Photo courtesy MRFCJ)

Liberia: Women's Icon With Nerves of Steel

Sirleaf has attracted investment of more than U.S.$16 billion in the mining, agriculture and forestry sectors and offshore oil exploration, and has won more than four billion dollars in debt relief for Liberia. (Photo courtesy Liberian Government)

Boost for Women's Export Businesses

A women's association in northern Central African Republic inspect a building they hope to rehabilitate for micro-credit activities. In February, nine women entrepreneurs will exhibit their products at Europe's largest buyers fair (Photo courtesy Justine Dede/OCHA)

Uganda: Mothers Deliver Under Tree

(file photo) Due to inadequate space at a health center in Pallisa District, healthworkers have built a makeshift shelter under a tree to help mothers deliver their babies. (Photo courtesy Trevor Snapp)

Uganda: Challenge of Gender Equality

Although much emphasis has been put on provision of education, little has been done to address causes of gender inequality, a new report has showed. (Photo courtesy Michael Kakumirizi)

Ghana: Women Still Politically Sidelined

In Ghanaian politics women are perceived as trespassers, decoration, or as supporters of the actions of men who sit higher up in the political establishment. (Photo courtesy Jim Lee/allAfrica)

Malaria Scientist Does Groundbreaking Research

At the Malaria Forum hosted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in October, the latest findings on what is currently the most viable malaria vaccine candidate in medical history, known as RTS,S. (Photo courtesy Gates Foundation)

Women in South Sudan Aim to Protect Their Rights

As South Sudan maps out its economic future women from the new country called on donors to invest in projects that ensure women benefit equally from development plans. (Photo courtesy Juba Media Collective)

A group of Maasai youth and elders gather early one morning before a meeting about reproductive health begins in Magadi, Kenya. (Photo courtesy David Njagi)

The repeated hooting of the Ostrich bus announces the break of dawn in Nguruman, a pastoralist village about 150 kilometers south of Nairobi near the Tanzania border. It also stirs Kipaa Ole Kitesho from sleep to answer the call of a new day.

On any other morning, Kitesho, 24, would be rounding up his livestock from their shed to prepare for another trek through thorny thickets in search of pasture to feed on.

But today, Kitesho's younger brother must ensure the flock is fed. That's because Kitesho has been invited to a meeting where he'll learn the importance of caring for his family by supporting better maternal health.


Topical Focus: Women and Gender

Illegal Abortions Are Cheap in Zambia

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Despite being illegal, abortions are still available in Zambia's capital at very low fees through private medical practitioners. Read more »

No Time to 'Give Up' On HIV-Fighting Gel

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Africans tracking the worldwide HIV epidemic have not found much to celebrate since Aids began ravaging the continent 30 years ago, but researchers are optimistic that they are ... Read more »

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