A number of South African Methodists are angry and upset about the ruling that a well-liked minister must be "defrocked" because of her gay marriage. Reverend Ecclesia de Lange of Cape Town married her life partner in December and was suspended by the church in January.

Despite arrests presently rocking the Kenyan gay community, human rights institutions recently held the first ever Public Lecture on Sexual Minority Rights aiming to address the rights of gays, lesbians and bisexuals among students and members of faculties of different academic institutions in Kenya.

Sandhya Boygah considers herself a victim of male-dominated politics. In 2007, she was asked by her party, the ruling Labour Party, to step aside and allow a man to stand for the elected post she sought.

Support for regional trade is one of the cornerstones of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). But the focus has been on large scale trade in goods and services, ignoring one important group trading throughout the region.

The chance of becoming pregnant not only increased over four years of antiretroviral treatment, but was almost 80% higher for HIV-infected women who began antiretroviral therapy than for HIV-infected women not on treatment enrolled in the Mother-to-Child Transmission Plus (MTCT Plus)-Initiative in seven sub-Saharan countries, report Landon Myer and colleagues in a study published in the February online edition of PLoS Medicine.

The bishops of the so-called 'Province of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa' has issued a strong statement raising concerns about the dire human rights consequences of Uganda's proposed new law, which will ban homosexuality, and even make it punishable with the death penalty. Read the full statement below.

Despite efforts to end the use of child soldiers in the war-torn east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), youngsters are still being recruited within the ranks of both the rebels and the national army, with girls at particular risk of becoming sex slaves and less likely to be released, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said.

As the East Africa Community (EAC) gradually moves towards a political confederation, women’s rights groups from the five member states are pushing for an East African Protocol on Gender and Development to bridge the gender gaps within the integration process.

Brigitte Kafui Adjamagbo-Johnson, head of the opposition Democratic Convention of African Peoples party, is Togo's first female presidential candidate. But she has withdrawn from the electoral process.

"Hidden Herstories: Women of Change" is a youth-led heritage project which looks at 4 influential women who haven't had their rightful place in the history books. 20 young people from west London have set out to right this wrong; using their film-making and writing skills, they have made a one hour documentary and published a magazine. The film exposes the plights and determination of Octavia Hill, Amy Ashwood Garvey, Claudia Jones and Jayaben Desai. For more information on these women, click below to view the 28 page magazine featuring contributions from Tristram Hunt, Jenny Bourne, Nzingha Assata and Marika Sherwood.

Kenyan police have released five people arrested for planning a "gay wedding" north of Mombasa, saying there was no evidence to prosecute them. But police spokesman Martha Mutegi told the BBC the men had been advised to leave the area for their own safety and to avoid angering the local community.

A Ugandan clergyman's decision to show gay pornography to his congregation has been labelled as "twisted, homophobic propaganda" by a gay rights groups. Behind the Mask says the stunt, by anti-gay Pastor Martin Ssempa, equated homosexuality to paedophilia.

This five-day training, offered by Minority Rights Group International (MRG), aims to equip minority and indigenous peoples activists (individuals and NGOs) with media skills to generate their own information and to interact with local, regional and international media especially in the European Union.

Moremi Initiative for Women’s Leadership in Africa is pleased to announce its call for applications for the 2010 Moremi Leadership Empowerment and Development (MILEAD) Fellows Program for young African women leaders. The MILEAD Fellows Program is a one-year leadership development program designed to identify, develop and promote emerging young African Women leaders to attain and succeed in leadership in their community and Africa as a whole.

Much has been said in the media and private conversations on the latest revelations of the South African president’s paternity of a child ‘out of wedlock’. Pumla Gqola counters some of the anti-feminist arguments put forward by defenders of Jacob Zuma’s choices.

While South Africa remains one of the countries with highest HIV prevalence rates, gay rights organizations are doing their bit to curb the spread of the syndrome and to ensure that people know their statuses.

Women's movements have played a critical role in creating political space for female participation in politics around the world. In fact, there are more women in government today than ever before. According to UNIFEM's Progress of the World's Women 2008/2009 report "Who Answers to Women? Gender & Accountability", women now hold an average of 18.4 percent of seats in national assemblies, though the rate of increase is still very slow.

Despite fighting that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people in Mogadishu, health workers have fanned out across the war-torn capital of Somalia in a three-month United Nations-backed campaign that has immunized nearly 300,000 women of child-bearing age and 288,000 children.

The number of women raped in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where sexual violence committed by warring factions has become endemic, topped 8,000 last year, according to fresh estimates released by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Local chiefs and Kenyan officials have prevented a planned "gay wedding" in Kenya - where such unions are illegal. The marriage had been due to take place in a private villa near the resort of Mombasa but chiefs took action after it was reported in the local press.