Participation

Dar Es Salaam — Women have continued to lag behind in elective posts as shown by the General Election results announced by yesterday evening, with only nine women having won parliamentary seats so far. Among them there are five who have retained their seats and four new candidates who have defeated their opponents.

The Somali rebel group Al-shababa has ordered women and children for the participation in the ongoing fight in the country, local has reported.

The rebel fights against the government forces and their allied troops of the African union troops popularly known as AMISOM in the capital, Mogadishu.

President of the 50/50 Group of Sierra Leone Tuesday said they are currently in the process of building the first Gender and Women's Leadership Training Institute in West Africa.

It is five years since the African Union (AU) Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa entered into force on November 25, 2005. To date, over fifty per cent of AU member states (29)[1] have ratified it. That day is significant to women worldwide as it also marks the start of the 16 Days of Activism against Violence against Women.

A top Saudi cleric challenged a ban on women driving on Tuesday, saying women should be allowed more social participation in the puritanical Islamic state.

Saudi Arabia is a monarchy ruled by Al Saud family in alliance with clerics from the strict Wahhabi school of Islam. Women must be covered from head to toe and are not allowed to drive.

The Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE), Rwanda Chapter, would like to have additional policies and continued advocacy in order to further boost girls' education in the country.

This was said, yesterday, during FAWE's annual General Assembly, where the organisation's members received the 2009-2010 report and discussed plans for the following year.

The Minister of Gender and Family Promotion, Dr. Jeanne d'Arc Mujawamariya, has requested churches to involve more women in leadership roles as a means of promoting gender equality in Rwanda.

She made the remarks on Thursday while opening of the National conference on the Role of Association of Pentecostal Churches in Rwanda (ADEPR), in promoting gender parity.

October 2010 marked the 10th anniversary of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, which calls for women to be engaged in all phases of securing, building, and maintaining peace. Commemorative events have focused on the challenge of implementing resolutions that call for the protection of women and the transformative inclusion of women in conflict prevention, resolution, and recovery.

Despite the political will shown by leaders on the African continent, women in Africa faced serious challenges with regards to empowerment and parity.

This is according to Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, who was speaking at the launch of the 2010 SADC Protocol on Gender and Development on Monday.

The Minister noted in some countries in the SADC region, women had minority status.

The improved political representation of women in Iraq is in sharp contrast to their broader disempowerment, as highlighted by the persistence of domestic violence and early marriage, according to a new report by the UN Inter-Agency Information and Analysis Unit.