There are more than thirty undeclared wars and internal conflicts taking place in the world at present. The impact of this situation on women, who are affected both as combatants and as civilians living in combat zones, is manifold. However, the stereotype of war as fought among soldiers in the battlefield is very far from the reality of today's wars and conflicts, which take place in the midst of civilian populations and inflict untold brutality and hardship on non-combatants. It is now estimated that 90 percent of war casualties are among ordinary civilians, according to this document, War and Armed Conflicts, by Niamh Reilly from WHRnet.

Africans were challenged on Thursday to find ways to end their exclusion from the rewards of globalisation and make the system work for the benefit of the continent's 820 million people. The challenge was issued by international and regional leaders at the opening ceremony of the African Regional Dialogue of the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation in Arusha, northern Tanzania. "We cannot wish globalisation away. It is an inevitable part of the development process, and African countries must respond to its challenges to ensure they reap its benefits while minimising its risks," Kingsley Amaoko, executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, told delegates.

If a draft protocol on the rights of women in Africa was passed in its current form by the African Union, the union would for the first time set lower standards than those already existing regionally and internationally, according to a letter sent to the African Union on behalf of Equality Now and the participants of an NGO meeting on the protocol held recently in Addis Ababa. Click on the link below to read the letter and a mark-up of the protocol showing where it falls below international standards.