The state security sector is still actively being used by Robert Mugabe and ZANU PF to torture and oppress women in order to keep them out of the political process, a new report has revealed. The report also brings out the direct role of the ZANU PF militia in the violence. The ‘Women and Political Violence: An Update’ report was compiled by the Women’s Programme of the Research and Advocacy Unit (RAU). It is a study on the degree of violence against women and its impact, after Robert Mugabe last year began demanding an election in 2011.

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has been working on the question of indigenous peoples since 1999. The Commission recognises the specific obstacles which indigenous peoples face in gaining recognition, exercising and enjoying their rights. The toolkit available through the link provided has been created in order to introduce indigenous women, and the organisations which represent them, to the African system of human and peoples’ rights. It highlights the different routes available to ensuring that the rights of indigenous women are valued and taken into account by
the African Commission.

This document from Gender Action assesses the extent to which IFIs address gender based violence (GBV) in their policies and investments. The institutions dealt with include the World Bank (WB), African Development Bank (AfDB), Asian Development Bank and Inter-American Development Bank.

In many countries women’s rights have been abused for so long that many women long ago stopped fighting for them. Not so Unity Dow, a lawyer who challenged the unequal citizenship rights in her native Botswana and won. Her 1992 lawsuit was recognised last month as a landmark case in the fight for women’s rights when UN Women published its flagship report: 'Progress of the World’s Women 2011-2012: In Pursuit of Justice'. Dow succeeded in overturning the section of Botswana’s Citizenship Act that prohibited Botswanan women who married foreigners from passing on their Botswanan nationality to their children.

Women in Law in Southern Africa (WILSA) working in Zambia, believes prevention is important in reducing the number of women who become victims of gender-based violence. Rudo Chingobe Mooba says the media can play an important role in raising awareness of risks and dangers as well as in influencing public opinion and policies that protect the rights of women. Rudo is worried that a number of gender-based violence cases occur in marriages. A situation she says 'poses a threat to stopping gender-based violence, notwithstanding the issues of HIV/AIDS which stand at 16% in Zambia.'

'Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo', 'I Want A Wedding Dress' and 'Ungochani' were three of the films recently screened at the Women’s Law Centre in Harare as part of a new film based gender rights series initiative between Women Filmmakers of Zimbabwe (WFOZ) and The Women’s Law Centre. The collaboration started in February this year and will continue in the next semester.

African women want their governments to undertake reforms that will enable them to get easier access to land. Making the appeal, the over 40 women drawn from across the continent also clarified: 'We are talking about natural succession to land.' This was at the end of a two-day workshop in Cameroon's Edea town on 28 July.

Governments, especially in Africa, need to have strong accountability measures in place in order to effectively reach women in rural areas through gender responsive budgeting. This was one of the recommendations in the Global Call for Action plan drawn up at the end of an international high-level meeting on gender responsive budgeting held in Kigali from 26 to 28 July. The meeting was held in conjunction with the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) and the European Union. Delegates also agreed that there was a need to strengthen the skills, competencies and abilities of local government leaders.

Of the millions of dollars spent on climate change projects in developing countries, little has been allocated in a way that will benefit women. Yet, in Africa, it is women who will be most affected by climate change. According to United Nations data, about 80 per cent of the continent's smallholder farmers are women. While they are responsible for the food security of millions of people, agriculture is one of the sectors hardest hit by climate change.

On 11 June and 2-3 July 2011 ‘punitive’ night raids were carried out against women in the southern city of M’sila, Algeria. Considered to be ‘potential prostitutes’ by their neighbours because they live alone, and under the pretext of the defense of morality, hundreds of youth have burnt down the houses of women who barely escaped being lynched. The police did not intervene.

Recently a press conference was held in Algeria where the Observatory on Violence Against Women condemned the lax manner with which the public authorities react to these punitive raids: ‘What we are denouncing is the absence of the state to the point where every individual can take the law into their own hands and find a pretext in the defense of morality to make an attempt on the lives of women.’

Please follow to read more and to sign a petition addressed to the Algerian authorities.

A French statement about these raids is available here.

A call for applications to grantees seeking to organise activities to mark 16 Days of Activism against Gender based Violence has been issued by African Women’s Development Fund. The maximum amount of grant disbursed per organisation will be US$1,000.

For the first time ever, the Kenyan finance minister has allocated almost four million dollars, about 3.6 per cent of the primary education budget, to provide free sanitary pads to schoolgirls. This comes after persistent pressure from women parliamentarians who took the issue of girls’ absenteeism from school, due to lack of sanitary pads, to parliament. It was a campaign that left their male counterparts speechless, for such matters are rarely spoken about in public, let alone in parliament, in Kenya’s conservative society.

Rwanda is the first country in the world where women outnumber men in parliament, with women occupying 45 out of 80 seats. However, despite this, experts say that the country still needs a gender equality perspective on how national resources and programmes are implemented. 'The move will help ensure government spending addresses the needs of women and men equitably,' said Susan Mutoni, referring to the situation in Rwanda. Mutoni is the project coordinator of gender responsive budgeting in Rwanda’s ministry of finance and economic planning. Since 2009, the country has been part of a three-year pilot programme, the Gender Equitable Local Development (GELD), which is organised by UN Women and the United Nations Capital Development Fund.

The recent International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) conference discussed a range of issues around LGBTI people and forced migration, writes Jeff Ogwaro, such as the fears asylum seekers may have around declaring their sexuality.

Bineta Diop is well known for her campaigning in defence of women's rights in Africa. As director of the non-governmental organisation Femmes Africa Solidarité, she is at the forefront of the fight for better protection of women in conflict zones and their integration in peace processes. In April 2011, the US magazine Time listed Diop among the 100 most influential people in the world, recognising her engagement with several initiatives for peace in Africa. In this interview, Diop, who comes from Senegal, told IPS that women must challenge men in order to share political and economic power.

South Africa’s LGBT community now has a financial service provider, Gaysure, catering exclusively for its needs. 'The gay community is a much lower risk when it comes to insurance needs and thus it is long overdue for not just another company targeting the LBGT market, but a company catering specifically for their needs with a niche product,' say Gaysure on their website. Products and services provided by Gaysure include, car and household insurance, business insurance, life insurance, retirement planning and stock broking.

The western region minister Paul Evans Aidoo has ordered the immediate arrest of all homosexuals in the region. He has tasked the Bureau of National Investigations and all security agencies to smoke out persons suspected to be engaging in same sex. He also enlisted the services of landlords and tenants to provide reliable information which will lead to the arrest of homosexuals.

Of the 158 MPs in Zambia, just 22 are women. With women representing just 14 per cent of parliament, Zambia is one of the poorest performers on affirmative action for female politicians in the South African Development Community, SADC, a regional interparliamentary body made up of 15 member countries. Zambia will hold its presidential and legislative elections in October. The Regional Women's Parliamentary Caucus, a policy organ of the SADC, has set a goal for women to make up half of Zambia's parliament after these elections.

Ghana's President John Evans Atta Mills has chastised the media for reporting that he 'would institute measures to check the menace of homosexuality and lesbianism'. He allegedly made the statement at the Sunyani Central Ebenezer Presbyterian Church. President Mills was said to have personally telephoned the acting editor of the Ghanaian Times to reprimand him over a recent publication in the state-owned newspaper of the raging homosexual issue, even though the story was originally a Ghana News Agency story.

Domestically abused women who are financially dependent on their abusers can now report the crime with the assurance that they will be able to get financial and medical support from the state, thanks to the country’s new law on domestic violence. Women’s campaigners have welcomed the introduction of the new law, which was signed into the statue books on 8 July, and which criminalises domestic violence and offers protection to victims and their families. Until now domestic violence had not been illegal in Angola - and on the rare occasions it reached court, it was prosecuted under rape, assault and battery laws.