Gay rights organisations in Cameroon have accused the country’s Catholic Church and the media of deliberately causing confusion about the Maputo Protocol with the intention to influence the public to have negative attitudes towards homosexuality. This comes after Cameroonian President Paul Biya ratified the Maputo Protocol, known in full as, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights of Women in Africa, during the sixth anniversary of the Maputo Protocol on 11 July this year.

Eight Malagasy women die per day while giving birth, either due to complications during the pregnancy or during delivery, according to a recently-published national Demographic and Health Survey (DHS).

A public presentation of the "Progress of the World's Women" report by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in Pretoria, South Africa this week suggests that one of the most powerful constraints on realising women's rights and achieving the Millennium Development Goals is a lack of accountability to women's needs.

Across most of sub-Saharan Africa, there are fewer than five doctors for every 100,000 people. Each year 20,000 health professionals leave their posts to pursue jobs in urban areas outside their own countries. That’s why innovative approaches to human resource planning and quality service provision are urgently needed if African countries are to reduce maternal death. Such an approach was presented at a recent conference in the Ethiopian capital on Human Resources for Maternal Survival: Task-shifting to Non-Physician Clinicians.

Several Sudanese women have been flogged as a punishment for dressing "indecently", according to a local journalist who was arrested with them. Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein, who says she is facing 40 lashes, said she and 12 other women wearing trousers were arrested in a restaurant in the capital, Khartoum.

Gender Links is seeking Female and Male Fieldworkers to conduct a Household Survey and Qualitative Research on women and men’s relationships in Gauteng Province. Gender Links, a non-governmental organization which promotes gender equality between women and men, is conducting a research project to understand women and men’s relationships in the province of Gauteng. Gender Links is its headquarters in Cyrildene, Johannesburg.

Women's groups in embattled Mogadishu are stepping into the aid vacuum to assist thousands more displaced by fighting in the capital, civil society activists said. "We have been helping in the past but now the situation is even worse so we have had to assume an even bigger role," said Asha Sha'ur, a civil society member and activist.

The 07-07-07 Campaign, has condemned the 20th postponement of Zoliswa Nkonyana’s murder case, citing incompetence from both the presiding magistrate and the Khayelitsha Magistrate Court. Nkonyana’s case went to court again two weeks ago where it was postponed to 28 September this year. “The delays in Zoliswa’s case have reached ridiculous levels, there have been 20 postponements and 15 of these have been due to delays by defense lawyers”, says Joint Working Group coordinator, Emily Craven.

A stringent Bill against homosexuality is in the offing, the state minister for ethics and integrity, Dr. James Nsaba Buturo, has said. Addressing a press conference at the Media Centre, Buturo said the country was besieged by homosexuality, pornography, prostitution, human sacrifice, drug abuse, embezzlement and witchcraft to the extent that it was “dangerously becoming a permissive society.”

Concerned about gender based violence, rapidly spiraling out of control in South Africa, a group of committed donors have established a Joint Gender Fund with the aim to provide grants to civil society organisations in support of projects that integrate fighting gender based violence and HIV and AIDS.

With women now comprising 61 percent of all people infected with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa, international donors, governments and advocacy organisations are looking more closely at the connections between HIV/AIDS and gender inequality. A new report released last week by two Washington-based think tanks, the Centre for Global Development (CGD) and the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW), more closely explores the connection between HIV/AIDS and gender inequality, and to what extent donors and countries are using this knowledge to help in the fight against AIDS.

In this book, gender justice activists from Men for Gender Equality Now (MEGEN Kenya) share their personal experiences as individuals and as Changemakers. Besides personal stories told by activists, this publication also includes short briefs on the work of MEGEN Kenya, highlighting the challenges, successes and lessons learned in different program areas.

Uganda will pass a law banning female genital mutilation, which is rampant among pastoralist tribes in the country's eastern region, the president said in a statement on Friday. "The way God made it, there is no part of a human body that is useless," President Yoweri Museveni told a gathering in the eastern Karamoja district.

More than 10, 000 Nigerian girls held captive as sex slaves in Morocco and Libya are to be repatriated, the House of Representatives Committee on Diaspora has revealed in a statement. The girls reportedly from Edo State, the southern part of the country, aged between 13 and 17, had been held captive by sex slave traders, the statement said.

The government has issued a stern warning to homosexuals and their sympathisers, saying it will not accept practice of unnatural sex even if it means losing out on the much needed donor support. The Minister of Ethics and Integrity, Dr Nsaba Buturo, told journalists at the Uganda Media Centre yesterday that they are ready to forfeit any amount of donor funding that is tagged as a condition to accept homosexuality.

A gay rights group in Cameroon is calling on the justice department to immediately drop charges against and release Yves Noe Ewane, arrested in May this year, allegedly for being gay. Ewane was charged under sections 74 for criminal intention, 346 for gross indecency and 347 for homosexual conduct under the Cameroonian Penal Code, following a complaint filed against him by the mother of a supposed minor who accused Ewane of having sexual relations with his son.

Female internally displaced persons (IDPs) will again be able to learn job skills, take literacy classes and receive awareness programmes on reproductive health after the joint African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) helped reactivate women’s centres at an IDP camp in the Sudanese region.

Around the world, a woman dies every minute from pregnancy-related causes. Globally, there are more than 500,000 maternal deaths per year, the majority of which are in Africa where in many places the maternal mortality rate (MMR) is as high as 1,000 deaths per 100,000 live births. And these death threats are only increasing: one in every 16 African women faces the lifetime risk of dying from pregnancy and delivery-related complications, particularly those from marginalized communities and those living in poverty.

The European Commission and UNIFEM are embarking on a programme that will be implemented in Rwanda, Kenya, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea and Cambodia. With a total budget of €2,450,353 for three years, the programme will focus on promoting the leadership of HIV-positive women’s groups and gender equality advocates, to ensure that gender equality priorities are identified, realized and budgeted in national HIV and AIDS responses.

The media flurry surrounding the Confederation Cup over the past few weeks was a small demonstration of what’s in store for Southern Africa next year when South Africa hosts World Cup 2010. Media is an important part of such an event’s success, as well as inspiring future generations of young footballers. However, it does raise the question – where are women in sport? Women and girls continue to be left out of the sporting arena, especially when it comes to media coverage.