Pambazuka News 268: Special Issue: Women, trade and justice

Building an effective and accountable way to fund science and technology across Africa is a major challenge facing the region's leaders and scientific communities. You are invited to join the debate. A few years ago, proposals for an African Science and Innovation Facility (ASIF) emerged from a group of African science ministers, meeting under the auspices of the New Partnership for Economic Development. This is the latest effort to build an institution that will meet the continent's science ...read more

7th September 2006 -- 2:30pm Sexual Offences Bill altered just days before finalisation Yesterday, the Justice Portfolio Committee added a new provision to the Sexual Offences Bill effectively aimed at criminalising the clients of sex workers.

FEATURED: Cheikh Tidiane Dièye introduces a special issue on trade and women's rights, arguing that women, more than any other group, suffer the weight of the constraints of poverty largely brought about by the world trade system
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:
- Roselynn Musa points out that the voices of women and poor people are largely missing from trade policy negotiations
- Salma Maoulidi asks what does trade mean for women in the East Africa region.
- Mohau Pheko argues t...read more

What is the role of women in world trade?

Compared to 50 years ago, women represent an increasingly higher number of the world’s labour force, with many studies placing the number at over 50 percent. However, this doesn’t include women who work in the informal sector or the unpaid activities of women at the household level. On a broader level, women’s access to health care and education, for example, are profoundly influenced by national economic policy – meaning that if international ...read more

Substantially reducing poverty in Africa will require massive policy shifts, writes Roselynn Musa. This is unlikely to happen unless the voices of women and poor people, which are largely missing from trade policy negotiations, are heard and respected.

It has often been propositioned that ‘trade’ and not ‘aid’ is the catalyst that will plunge African countries from unending poverty to economic prosperity. There is no denying the fact that trade has brought benefits for African women pa...read more

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