By Sarah | June 20, 2011
Guardian Online, 14 June 2011
The price of womanhood came brutally to Odette, born in a wartorn country often dubbed “the rape capital of the world”.
The 18-year-old from Minova recalls the day that members of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), came to her village in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and scarred her life for ever. Read the rest of this entry »
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By Sarah | March 2, 2011
UN Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 1 March 2011
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay expressed deep concern Tuesday about the continuing illegal detention and reported ill-treatment of 45 members of civil society in Zimbabwe, who have allegedly been charged with treason for discussing events in Egypt and Tunisia. She also called for their speedy release. Read the rest of this entry »
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By Mark | February 8, 2011
A women’s conference in Addis Ababa aimed to move gender issues from the margins to the forefront of debate in Africa
Elissa Jobson, Guardian.co.uk
“We know that the African Union summit is still very masculine but we are trying to bring in the voices of women,” said Gertrude Mongella, former president of the Pan-African parliament, explaining the rationale behind the shadow summit organised by the Gender is my Agenda Campaign (Gimac) in Addis Ababa on 24-26 January. A difficult proposition in a forum where, at the very highest level, there is only one female representative, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, president of Liberia. Read the rest of this entry »
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By Info | January 4, 2011
The United Nations made history today as UN Women, the UN agency dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, has officially begun its work. Read the rest of this entry »
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By Mark | December 2, 2010
By Victoria Dove Dimandja and Jose Musau Kalanda, It must stop campaign
The Congolese people have endured Africa’s longest and deadliest war. The scramble for Congo’s enormous mineral wealth has fuelled a conflict which has claimed the lives of more than 6 million people since 1996, and ongoing mass rapes. This is the worst humanitarian crisis and the world’s deadliest conflict since World War II, yet the media has given it little attention, and much of the world remains uninformed. Read the rest of this entry »
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By Campaigns | November 17, 2010
After five years of campaigning and eight months since the General Assembly resolved to create a new entity for gender equality, the United Nations established UN Women in July 2010. For decades the UN’s work on women has been fragmented between four small bodies, but with the creation of UN Women there is now an agency similar to UNICEF or UNDP to provide a unified voice on gender equality. Read the rest of this entry »
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By admin | September 17, 2010
Press Release
ACTSA, London, UK
17 September 2010
For Immediate Release
Appointment of former Chilean President Dr. Michelle Bachelet as head of new UN Women’s Agency is welcome and encouraging says ACTSA
ACTSA welcomes the news that former Chilean President Dr. Michelle Bachelet has been appointed to head UN Women, the new agency which will begin its work in January 2011. Dr Bachelet has a strong record of campaigning for women’s rights and ACTSA recognises her appointment as one which should provide the Agency with strong and dynamic leadership.
ACTSA has actively campaigned for the Agency’s establishment, which has been in planning stages since September 2009. Women in southern Africa bear the major burden of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, family care and from poverty itself. Women suffer through discrimination and marginalisation and in a disturbing number of cases across the region from violence. ACTSA has supported the call for a UN women’s agency in the belief and hope it will make a real difference to the lives of women in southern Africa. Michelle Bachelet’s appointment gives encouragement that the agency will be well led and strong force for positive change.
A key challenge now is to ensure the Agency is well funded. We and others believe it needs a budget of at least $1billion. Some of this can be found from existing budgets but additional funding is needed. Another key challenge is to shake up the UN and the large multilateral agencies so there is real progress on overcoming the discrimination women in southern Africa and across the world continue to suffer. ACTSA calls on the international community and governments worldwide to recognise the importance of the new Agency and to fund it accordingly.
Tony Dykes, Director of ACTSA said:
“We welcome the announcement of Michelle Bachelet as the head of the UN’s women’s agency. The Agency has the potential to make a real difference to women’s lives in southern Africa by providing top level leadership to ensure there is real and sustained improvement in their quality of life.”
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By Info | September 16, 2010
AIDS-Free World, 16 September 2010
In yet another grisly déjà vu, the world has heard about hundreds of rapes in a small area of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, or Congo) in late July and early August, many of them in North Kivu, within a few miles of a United Nations encampment of peacekeepers charged with protecting civilians. The UN is not just negligent but complicit in these crimes. Read the rest of this entry »
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By admin | September 16, 2010
Excellent Results Despite Flawed Process:
Former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet Chosen to Head UN Women
Article from Aids Free World 14 September
AIDS-Free World welcomes the appointment of former Chilean President, Dr. Michelle Bachelet, to head the United Nations’ first full-fledged agency for women. We are enthusiastic and relieved following today’s announcement that the newly formed “UN Women” will open its doors in January 2011 with an eminently qualified, effective and respected leader at its helm. Read the rest of this entry »
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By Info | August 11, 2010
Guardian Online, 10 August 2010
Anybody wonder why we need a UN women’s agency? Maybe the latest report from Human Rights Watch – out today – will offer some clues. It’s about Argentina – not the poorest or the least sophisticated or illiberal country in the world. It voted to legalise gay marriage, after all. It has a woman president. Yet thousands of women and girls there, says the report, “suffer needlessly every year because of negligent or abusive reproductive health care”. Read the rest of this entry »
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