Jean-Baptiste Hounkonnou, publication director of the Beninese independent daily Le Nouvel Essor, has been granted a provisional release after spending six weeks in jail on criminal defamation charges. On April 27, Benin's Court of Appeal granted Hounkonnou's request for provisional release, and he was freed the same day, according to sources. He is due to reappear in court on May 27 and could face jail time again if he loses the appeal.

The Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN is disturbed at the prison sentence handed down to journalist Jean-Baptiste Hounkonnou on 16 March 2004 for "defamation". Hounkonnou, the publication director of the daily "Le Nouvel Essor", was sent to Parakou (Centre-Est) prison immediately after the trial to begin serving his sentence. The verdict stems from a December 2003 "Le Nouvel Essor" article in which a woman was accused of adultery.

The government of Benin has set up a national child protection committee to oversee the fight against child trafficking and the work of child protection organisations. The 15-member committee includes the representatives of several child welfare organisations, the government and the police. It was set up last Friday for an initial period of 12 months.

The government of Benin has put on trial 27 of its own judges on charges of embezzling millions of dollars of state funds. They form part of a group of 99 court and finance ministry officials charged with illegally pocketing more than US$15 million of state funds over a period of four years.

Benin should allocate at least 5 per cent of its GDP for social priorities to promote human development and progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), according to a new UNDP report by a team of national experts. The Benin National Human Development Report 2003, launched recently in Cotonou, the capital, focuses on financing for human development and finds that public spending on social priorities -- including basic education and health care, nutrition and water supply and sanitation – is inadequate.

Benin’s environment and urbanisation ministry has begun a one-week sensitisation campaign across the country to raise awareness about rising pollution in this small West African country.

Secondary schools in Benin have been shut down and many government offices have been under-staffed as a result of a three-day strike by public sector workers to demand higher pay.

Eighteen-year-old Gnoulla Yempabou started as a farmhand in cotton fields in Benin, when he arrived from neighbouring Burkina Faso a few years ago. Now, Yempabou has his eyes on other business: he is slowly becoming interested in joining the child-trafficking racket. The work is less backbreaking and the profit is good. Statistics on child labour, as well as on child trafficking, varies in Benin. Some rights groups put the figure to as high as 150 000.

Etienne Houessou, publication director of the newspaper Le Télégramme, and three of his colleagues were assaulted and detained by police officers on 1 April. Three journalists were arrested and taken to Cotonou's central police station. Houessou went to the police station a few hours later, where he too was beaten up and then detained.

After her husband died, Louise Anagonou was banished from their matrimonial home, which she and her husband had built at Ouidah, a small town some 40 kilometres west of the commercial capital, Cotonou. ''In Benin, women are still kidnapped, forced into marriage, beaten and raped by their husbands,'' says Genevieve Boko-Nadjo of Women in Law and Development in Africa (WILDAF), a non-governmental organisation, which has offices all over sub-Saharan Africa.

Benin has taken steps necessary to reach its completion point under the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, making the country eligible for debt relief totalling US $460 million, the IMF and World Bank's International Development Association (IDA) reported on Tuesday.

Rights groups have welcomed a new law, banning all forms of female genital mutilation in Benin. ''I am pleased with the passage of the law, because, of all the countries in the sub-region, Benin was the last to outlaw female genital mutilation,'' says Genevieve Boko Nadjo, president of WILDAF-Benin, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) dealing with women issues.

Voters in Benin went to the polls last Sunday in the country's first municipal elections since the end of one-party rule in 1990. Some three million people were eligible to elect their mayors and municipal councillors, previously designated by the government

Benin has intensified a national campaign against child labour which has attracted at least 600,000 children in a population of 6.7 million people, the InterPress Agency reported last Thursday.

The Joint Regional HIV/AIDS Project in the Abidjan-Lagos Transport Corridor aims to improve access to HIV/AIDS prevention services, care and support to National HIV/AIDS Control Programmes with special emphasis on migrants, drivers, sex workers, and local populations living in the border towns along the Abidjan-Lagos transport corridor.

Benin police last Wednesday stopped a protest march planned in Cotonou by the country's Human Rights League (LDH), against alleged human rights violations in the country, witnesses said. The estimated 40 security men armed with tear gas canisters and truncheons, stormed the Cotonou Labour Office Square where the demonstrators had assembled for the march.

The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights this has continued its consideration of an initial report from Benin on how that country was implementing the provisions of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In response to questions raised by Committee Experts on Thursday afternoon, the members of Benin's delegation said that the Government was convinced that the process of decentralization would allow the population, through elections, to increase its responsibilities at the local level.

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), in partnership with Benin's Health Ministry, has launched a programme aimed at improving early childhood development by reducing the incidence of preventable diseases and ailments linked to poor nutrition.

The political bureau of the Benin Renaissance party, [former President Nicephore] Soglo wing, has condemned the ordinance issued by the government in power. It also noted, with regret, the gradual drift of the country towards dictatorship, the annihilation of moral and political values, the increase in the embezzlement of public funds, corruption at all levels of government, incessant strikes and general social unrest, and the suppression of all anti-government voices.

In Benin, the determination of President Kerekou's government to fight corruption is bearing fruit. In this connection, nine magistrates have just been arrested. They are accused of stealing more than 1bn CFA francs.