The African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies, ACDHRS, last Wednesday held a one-day National Consultative Workshop on The Ratification and Implementation to the African Chartered on Human and Peoples' on the Rights of women in Africa at the Kairaba Beach Hotel. This National Consultative Workshop is part of the campaign strategy spearheaded by the Coalition of Women's Organisation in Africa to encourage African governments to ratify the protocol.

During the early morning hours of 15 August 2004, BBC Banjul correspondent Ebrima Sillah's house was set ablaze by suspected arsonists. Sillah, who was alone in the house, was sleeping when the arsonists attacked. According to Media Foundation for West Africa sources in The Gambia, the incident occurred in Sillah's home village of Jamburu, 30 km southwest of the capital, Banjul. The attackers reportedly doused the house's sitting room with petrol before setting it on fire.

Impoverished child refugees in Gambia are turning to prostitution with European visitors, compounding the West African country's sex-tourism problem, according to a U.N. children's fund report issued on Wednesday. Experts from UNICEF, which issued the report on sex abuse in Gambia, said they were concerned the country is increasingly a destination for sex tourists as countries in south-east Asia take steps to shake off their image as havens for paedophiles.