The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) and the Youth Empowerment and Transformation Trust (YETT), in collaboration with young women’s networks and formations in Southern Africa, are hosting a Southern African Young Women’s Festival (SAYWF) in Harare from 24 to 28 October 2010. The Festival is designed to provide space for young women between 18 and 30 years of age, to come together and share experiences, share strategies and energise each other and celebrate their youth and the potential they have to advocate for social justice in their respective communities.

OSISA seeks the services of a team of consultants to undertake an evaluation of OSISA’s programming in gender and women’s rights in Southern Africa, since its establishment. The evaluation is designed to be an important process that should draw lessons that OSISA ought to learn from its experiences in the past decade, as well as highlight opportunities for the Foundation going forward. The evaluation has two key overarching objectives, namely:

Parliamentarians in Mozambique are currently facing a challenge by an advocacy group new to the country's political scene, on an issue most people are unwilling to even talk about - sex work. The newly formed Mozambique chapter of the Pan African Sex Workers Alliance (ASWA) are pressing parliament to recognise the rights of sex workers, especially to ensure their health and security.

When nine-year-old Jeanne* from North Kivu Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was raped by a neighbour, her parents were determined he would not get away with it. With the help of an international organization that provides legal services for victims of sexual violence, they contacted the police and got a lawyer. Then the DRC’s legal system kicked in.

Twelve-year-old Rama* in Senegal’s Sédhiou region is still in school instead of wedded to a man in his 40s, after community members convinced her father to abandon the family’s plan to give her away. But in most cases family or social pressure to marry off young girls still wins out in many regions of the country, researchers and educators say.

When Macklean Kyomya came to the Ugandan capital, Kampala, at 19, she found work as a lap-dancer in a nightclub and was soon accepting money from clients in exchange for sex. "I enjoyed the feeling of power I had over men; I had a pimp who looked after me so I was never forced to do anything I didn't choose to," she told IRIN/PlusNews. "I was still doing my A-levels, so the money helped pay my way."

From 5 – 16 July 2010, a special online forum being hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organization’s e-agriculture.org initiative, and will discuss the issues surrounding gender, ICTs and rural livelihoods. The forum will also be moderated by the APC’s Jennifer Radloff as part of the Gender, agriculture and rural development in the information society. (GenARDIS) project. Join e-agriculture and GenARDIS for this forum, which will look at what has and has not worked, good practices, as well as the critical area of capacity building and what can be done to empower men and women to play a bigger role in ICTs for agriculture and rural development.

A draft Bill proposing a ban on sexual content on the internet and cellphones submitted to the South African Department of Home Affairs in May 2010 claims to have the best interests of women and children in mind but has set alarm bells ringing in the women’s movement. “The Bill equates women with children –taking a protectionist approach to the rights of women— and promotes state censorship,” says Sally-Jean Shackleton, director of Women’sNet, a feminist technology organisation based in Johannesburg.

The EAC signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Eastern African Sub-Regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women (EASSI) on 6th July 2010 at the EAC Headquarters. The EAC Deputy Secretary General (Productive and Social Sectors) Mr. Jean Claude Nsengiyumva signed on behalf of the EAC Secretariat while Ms Marren Akatsa-Bukachi (Executive Director) signed on behalf of EASSI.

With a view to raising awareness about available protections of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Kenyans in the Bill of Rights Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) and Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya hosted a Civic Education day on 19 June. The proposed new constitution, a summary of 18 chapters, was a theme for this day with discussions on how it will affect the Kenyan LGBT community.

Moroccan media distorts the image of women, according to a recent survey undertaken by the communication ministry. Overall, Moroccan females believe that their image is so misrepresented and manipulated that it does not mirror the reality of Moroccan women, the survey said. Advertising and drama are the farthest from reality in terms of perception of everyday women's lives, said women whose opinions were recorded in the final report released on June 30th.

The Mozambican government has adopted various policies to address the effects of climate change, with special attention to women as studies show that they are more adversely affected by this phenomenon. The south-east African country, with its coastline of 2,700 km stretching along the Indian Ocean, has increasingly been subjected to environmental disasters over the past decade.

Fear of sexual violence is keeping poor Kenyan women away from communal toilets, and increasing the risk of disease, Amnesty International says. In a report on Kenya's slums, the human rights group said women and girls were afraid to leave their shacks at night. As a result they were risking contracting diseases such as dysentery and cholera, the report said.

Cameroon's government has rejected the claim by a gay asylum seeker in the UK that he would face persecution if he returned home. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court in London ruled in favour of the man, and a similar claimant from Iran.

As part of the Global Open Day for Women and Peace, 20 women from civil society and community-based organizations in Kenya came together in Nairobi on 7 July to discuss issues related to the inclusion of women in processes of conflict resolution, peace negotiations and peacebuilding. The consultative forum was organized by UNIFEM and UNDP in the context of the 10th anniversary of UN Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security.

The Urgent Action Fund – Africa (UAF-Africa)invites all to be a part of an historic project to immortalize the amazing stories of amazing women in you life. We are publishing the stories of women loved, honoured and celebrated by the people whose lives they have inspired in a beautiful Coffee Table Book. The book is titled, “Extraordinary Lives: the story of amazing women”. Through this venture we are raising funds which we will invest in the empowerment of women and girls in Africa, so that they too can believe in their own power, possibilities, worth, equality, dignity and the opportunity to inspire the lives around them.

Early marriage is a form of violence against women. The young female takes a responsibility with number of consequences based on a sexual relation that she did not choose to have. Moreover, the marriage takes place at an age when the young girl is not ready neither physically nor psychologically to bear the consequences of such relation.

Despite the important achievements so far in the field of women rights and the continuous efforts from both the state and the civil society to protect and promote these rights. Yet some traditional practices that seriously violate women rights still persist. Among those practices, is female circumcision, which is still unfortunately widely spread in Egypt. The government started recently combating this phenomena under increasing international pressure, where it is considered as a serious violation of women rights.

It was in part Ethiopian opposition leader and activist Birtukan Midekssa’s campaign for women’s rights that led to her imprisonment by the Zenawi government, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. Highlighting the challenges Ethiopian women continue to face, Mariam looks to Midekssa’s legacy for a vision of a better Ethiopia, in which women’s rights are recognised and in which women play a vital role in the country’s history.

Global Women's Strike and other solidarity organisations call for signatures in support of a return for exiled Haitian former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.