Ellen Gruenbaum, who has conducted research in Sudan and Sierra Leone on the practice of female genital cutting and the social movements against "harmful traditional practices," will discuss her work on Wednesday, Sept. 29, at SUNY Cortland.
The Moremi Initiative has launched the 2014 MILEAD Fellows Leadership Institute to train young women to develop their talents to create a change in their societies. Twenty-eight young women from 26 different African countries, including Sudan, Benin, Gambia, South Africa, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Ghana, are participating in the programme.
Sudanese authorities shut a 17-year-old centre for women's rights without explanation on Tuesday, the centre's director said, despite the government's talk of national dialogue and freedoms.
"They immediately entered and they said: 'Please ask your staff to stop the work'," Fahima Hashim, of Salmmah Women's Resource Centre, said.
"We have just left the office. We closed everything."
Pressure on the Sudanese government to release Meriam Ibrahim stepped up on Monday with a formal complaint against authorities in Khartoum brought by four African organisations alleging multiple violations of fundamental rights.
The death sentence imposed on the Sudanese mother, who has been in prison since February, should be suspended, and she and her two children immediately released, they say.
UN independent experts have urged Sudan to end flogging punishments for women accused of so called moral crimes, stressing that the practice amounts to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment that goes against international law.
How best can international development agencies and indigenous NGOs support the efforts of women in the countries where they work to challenge the violence against them? What is development, who are the intended beneficiaries, and at what cost? The next section will argue that violence against women has often been framed as a concern for development agencies in narrowly economic terms.
Lawyers and rights activists are calling for a change in Sudan's laws which allow for the marriage of girls as young as 10.
It is time, they say, that Sudan's laws recognise gender equality so that the country's girls and young women can take control of their lives and leave behind the cycle of child marriage and abuse.
When Sudanese President Omar Bashir and South Sudanese President Salva Kiir signed a series of agreements on September 27 in Addis Ababa, they signaled their governments' commitment to peace and cooperation between their two countries. However, since that time, implementation of these agreements sadly has been lacking.
A series of workshops on women's participation in the Darfur Peace Process were organized throughout Darfur by the African Union - United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID). The forums, which targeted more than 160 local media representatives of which most were women, aimed at enhancing the capacity to advocate on the importance of the role of women in the peace and political process in the region.
