Back in 1997, 13 Senegalese villages publicly declared that they would no longer permit female circumcision, or female genital mutilation (FGM) as it's called by critics. In the eight years since, the number has grown to 1,527, representing 30 percent of Senegalese communities where FGM has been practiced. Dozens more villages are preparing to make similar declarations in the coming months. The sea-change in Senegal is being credited to a slow but steady program of human rights education that allows villagers to make up their own minds about whether to abandon female circumcision. Spearheaded by a local rights agency called Tostan, the program's success is proving so eye-catching that the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is endorsing it as a model.

The experiences, practices and focus of the Ghanaian student movement make for a sad reflection, states this commentary on the website of the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. " The flame of student struggle which was set burning and handed down to successive generations of Ghanaian student leaders began dimming from the early 1990s, got worse in the late 1990s, and in the year 2005 I can state without fear of contradiction that this flame has finally gone off." In this context there is an urgent need for a radical change in the top-down organizational structure of the Ghanaian student movement as it exists today, the article concludes.

Thanks for sending me the newsletter. It has lots of interesting things in it. I was really concerned, however, when I saw the header in the newsletter that read Women/Gender. I must say that I am very tired of the word gender altogether. What it means is socially acceptable behaviour according to a person's sex. It therefore applies to both women and men. But it is never used in this way. It has now become a substitute word for women. I realise the UN and other government agencies are key misusers of the word, but is it possible not to use it in Pambazuka? Or if it is used it is used to highlight men's issues as well (although I prefer critical avoidance myself). For me it is a word of assimilation and not at all useful.