Pambazuka News is produced by a pan-African community of some 2,600 citizens and organisations - academics, policy makers, social activists, women's organisations, civil society organisations, writers, artists, poets, bloggers, and commentators who together produce insightful, sharp and thoughtful analyses and make it one of the largest and most innovative and influential web forums for social justice in Africa. 
women
16 demands to end violence against women
Salma Maoulidi
2009-12-23, Issue 463
cc Wikimedia CommonsAnnual campaign ‘16 Days of Violence Against Women’ has raised the profile of violence against women through Tanzania’s local media, Salma Maoulidi writes in this week’s Pambazuka News, but there’s no guarantee that greater visibility of the issues will change attitudes and spark political to stop violence against women. Raising alarm over the ‘intolerable multi-dimensional culture of violence’ that women experience, Maoulidi makes a series of sixteen demands ‘to underscore fundamentals in changing an ideology and deeply seated culture of violence against women’.
Rights, the law and religion: Islamic courts in East Africa
Salma Maoulidi
2009-12-23, Issue 463
cc ThiemeAs Muslim leaders across Kenya meet to discuss the status of Kadhi’s (Islamic) courts in the country’s draft constitution, Salma Maoulidi looks at the challenges of securing legal and human rights compliance within a religious framework in Tanzania, where debate has been raging over the introduction of the Kadhi’s courts in the legal and judicial system.
AU women and gender experts adopt key instruments
African Press Organization
2009-11-19, Issue 458
cc M A UAfrican Union (AU) experts on women and gender affairs will submit their recommendations to establish the African Union Women’s Trust Fund feasibility study, the African Union Commission Gender Action Plan, and the Roadmap for the African Women’s Decade: 2010-2020 to ministers in charge of gender and women’s affairs on 21 November. In order to disseminate and monitor the implementation of the Action Plan the meeting proposed using faith-based groups, imams, and the media to sensitise and transmit messages to women and society at large.
Women’s rights: Looking back or moving forward?
The Beijing Platform for Action in Africa
Mary Wandia
2009-11-19, Issue 458
cc S CDespite the wide adoption of protocols for gender equality across Africa, ‘violations of women’s human rights have reached epidemic proportions,’ Mary Wandia writes in Pambazuka News, ‘and unless we adopt a multi-sectoral approach in the implementation and monitoring of regional and international commitments, we shall continue to marginalise half of the continent’s population.’ With the Beijing +15 Africa Review meeting underway in Banjul, Wandia asks whether Africa’s ministers for gender and women will ‘rise up to the challenge’.
Why we shouldn’t need Beijing +15
Morissanda Kouyaté
2009-11-19, Issue 458
cc Tom Maruko‘The idea behind “Beijing” was not to get together every five years and count the victims of gender discrimination and violence’, Morissanda Kouyaté writes in Pambazuka News. ‘It was intended to be – and remains – a campaign to end these problems. A lack of will remains a key obstacle to achieving this – not just political will, but at all levels, to consider women as equal members of society, enjoying all inalienable rights accorded to men.’
Peace is a mere illusion when rape continues
Stephen Lewis
2008-09-10, Issue 395
Here is an unassailable truth: if sexual violence is not addressed during the course of a conflict, then sexual violence will haunt the post-conflict period, and make of the ostensible peace a mockery for half the population....
Censorship in Nigeria
Interview with Hausa novelist Sa’adatu Baba
Amina Koki Gizo
2008-09-10, Issue 395
While formal publishing companies in Nigeria languished through the economic crises that accompanied the structural adjustment programmes of the late 1980s and early 1990s, young Hausa writers began writing about their lives and contemporary problems they faced. Bypassing formal publishers, they self-published their novels, often with the help of a writers' cooperative....
Violence against women in Africa: from discrimination to impunity
A call for ratification and implementation of the Maputo Protocol
2008-08-07, Issue 392
African Women’s Day gives us the opportunity to remember that gender-based violence is one of the most serious and widespread violations of the basic rights of women, particularly on the African continent. Gender discrimination is both one of the causes and an aggravating factor of the consequences of violence against women, thus contributing to the perpetuation of impunity of such cases....
Enforcement of the Sexual Offences Act in Kenya
Anne Kithaka
2008-08-05, Issue 392
INTRODUCTION Is the criminal justice system in Kenya well equipped to protect women from gender-based violence? This a critical question because in July this year, the Sexual Offences Act (SOA) is celebra...
Ending Impunity for Sexual and Gender Based Violence conference Communiqué
SGBV Conference
2008-07-31, Issue 392
Sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) is a scourge on Africa; a pandemic that has undermined women and girls’ rights to autonomy, bodily integrity, human dignity, sexuality, security and tranquillity. SGBV has, and continues to be a major hindrance to rights and justice. It is prevalent in all our societies across the continent, including non-conflict situations. It is repeatedly used as a weapon against girls and women in conflict/crisis situations. SGBV, including intimate partner violence, is a leading factor in the increasing "feminisation" of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa. ...
Burundi: Access to water is a human right
Concilie Gahungere
2008-06-10, Issue 379
If women had control over water as resource "they would be better placed to manage its use, especially in agriculture, which is the principal economic activity in Burundi, and is controlled by women." Concilie Gahungere looks at access to water in relation to gender using Burundi as a case study.
Peace with sexual violence is still war!
Stephen Lewis
2008-06-05, Issue 378
When my co-Director of AIDS-Free World, Paula Donovan, visited in November, and observed that the war being waged against women “may well be the most savage display of misogyny ever orchestrated in a conflict zone”, she was right. Terrible, unspeakable things have been done to the women of DR Congo, writes Stephen Lewis. It isn’t enough to stop the shooting when the raping continues apace. The only worthwhile armistice restores peace for the entire population, male and female. There can be no satisfaction in claiming a truce or a peace treaty which is soaked in the carnage of the women of the land. If all the peacekeepers were women, and the men of a country were under pervasive sexual assault, do you think the women would simply observe the carnage?
Women left for dead—and the man who’s saving them
Eve Ensler
2008-05-22, Issue 374
In the Congo, where tens of thousands of women are brutally raped every year, Dr. Denis Mukwege repairs their broken bodies and souls. Eve Ensler visits him and finds hope amid the horror.
End the Zimbabwe Political Impasse!
Feminist Political Education Project
2008-04-15, Issue 362
We the under-signed Zimbabwean women, in our capacity as THE FEMINIST POLITICAL EDUCATION PROJECT (FePEP), urgently call for an end to the political impasse that our country is in. Over a week after we voted in the harmonized elections, we note with great dismay that the results of the Presidential elections are yet to be released.
Violence against Women, HIV/AIDS and Conflict
Mary Wandia and Neelanjana Mukhia
2008-03-06, Issue 351
Mary Wandia and Neelanjana Mukhia reflect on the struggle to free women from violence, the ravages of HIV/AIDS and the effects of conflict
Women’s Participation in the 2007 General Elections in Kenya
Penninah Ogada
2007-12-19, Issue 333
Dr. Penninah Ogada discusses the social, political and economic factors that impeding the full participation of Kenyan women in this year's general election.
Demanding implementation, challenging obstacles
Irene Sithole
2007-11-29, Issue 330
Irene Sithole writes that Zimbabwe's women suffer violence in all environments including work place, the home and the political arena
Human trafficking concern for 2010
Tonya Graham
2007-11-29, Issue 330
In the run up to World Cup 2010, organisations around the world are seriously concerned about the problem of human trafficking into the Southern African region, says Tonya Graham.
Gender approach to violence, labour rights and discrimination
Aboubacry Mbodji
2007-11-29, Issue 330
Aboubacry Mbodji proposes a gender approach in regard to violence, labour rights and discriminations against women in Senegalese working environment.
The raging debate over women's reproductive autonomy
Salma Maoulidi
2007-11-29, Issue 330
Salma Maoulidi examines the link between abortion and women's reproductive autonomy
Zimbabwean women forced to give sexual favours to survive
Miriam Madziwa
2007-11-29, Issue 330
Miriam Madziwa writes that each time the Zimbabwe dollar tumbles, women's survival chances take a corresponding knock, as it means more sexual favours to seal deals with men, who by virtue of their jobs or connections are able to make or break women's survival attempts
Putting the teeth back in the SADC Gender Protocol
Pamela Mhlanga
2007-11-29, Issue 330
The journey just got tougher for civil society activists who have been spearheading efforts to ensure that Southern African Development Community (SADC) governments are legally bound to achieve gender equality, writes Pamela Mhlanga
Protocol on the rights of women in Africa: Second Anniversary
Faiza Jama Mohamed
2007-11-21, Issue 329
What gains and what challenges do we have two years after the entry into force of the protocol? This is the overall question that the various articles presented in this special issue of Pambazuka News aim at addressing. And what is clearly coming out is that the challenges outweigh the gains made so far, writes Faiza Mohamed.
Making the protocol effective at family level
Morissanda Kouyaté
2007-11-21, Issue 329
It is two years since the Protocol came into force. Time has come for it to become a reality at the level of the family argues Morissanda Kouyate.
Making the AU protocol a continental agenda: SOAWR's experience
Caroline Muthoni Muriithi
2007-11-21, Issue 329
As we approach the 2nd anniversary of the coming into force of the Protocol,Caroline Muthoni Muriithi takes us on a retrospective of the continental successes that SOAWR has achieved so far.
The 'lost protocol' in Uganda: tears, struggles and hope
Solome Nakaweesi-Kimbugwe
2007-11-21, Issue 329
Today, as many across the continent celebrate the 2nd Anniversary of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, the women’s movement in Uganda is struggling to ‘find the protocol’, says Solome Nakaweesi-Kimbugwe
Sudanese women: Towards ending violence and discrimination
Ratification of the protocol is crucial
Manal Abdelhalim
2007-11-21, Issue 329
Manal Abdelhalim reflects on the Sudan's progress towards ending violence and discrimination against women, within the context of the protocol.
South Africa's reservations and the Protocol
Delphine Serumaga
2007-11-21, Issue 329
Delphine Serumaga writes that despite the impressive policy framework that state has set in place for the protection of the women's rights, South African women and the girl-child remain marginalized with regards to access to basic human rights such as justice, safety and security, housing and health.
Women, equality and the African human rights system
Roselynn Musa
2007-11-13, Issue 328
Roselynn Musa writes that despite the promises and the mobilisations by women from all over the continent, African women still lack adequate protection of their human rights. She argues that the root of the problem is the persistent lack of political will by governments to implement commitments to gender equality.