Far from the glitz and glamour of the WTA Tour, this is Venus and Serena Williams visiting a South African township near Johannesburg. The sports most famous sisters made a trip to the Arthur Ashe Tennis Centre to launch their ‘Breaking the Mould’ campaign to promote the achievements of women.
Also known as BTM, the campaign is based around promoting women who have overcome adversity to succeed at home and in their communities.
Credit:livesporttv.com
Culture and tradition can be a beautiful component of a people’s way of life and African societies are not short of various cultural practices. But on the same note, there are those practices that can be termed as retrogressive and infringe on people’s rights. Among the Samburu…girls as young as nine can be beaded by the morans meaning that this ritual lets the morans engage in sexual intercourse with young girls even when they do not intend to marry them . Woe unto the girls should they fall pregnant as they are forced to abort in crude ways as access to health care is minimal. If the pregnancies are carried to full term then the girls are forced to abandon their babies in the bush.
Source:www.ktnkenya.tv
A group of HIV positive women in Kenya say they’ve been sterilised without permission.
Now they’re planning to file a lawsuit against those responsible.
But one women’s rights group says the practice may be more widespread than previously thought.
Al Jazeera’s Catherine Soi reports from Nairobi.
Women are the backbone of every society and empowering them is essential. The 2nd Africa India Forum Summit opened a platform to provide knowledge exchange for a sustainable livelihood between women of Africa and India, through handicrafts. ‘Tapestries of Change: An Indo-African Story of Empowerment’ takes the viewer on a journey through the trials and achievements in the lives of craftswomen. Watch these women weave together a colorful tapestry of hope.
This is the VOA Special English Health Report , from http://voaspecialenglish.com
Women in a civil rights group in Togo called a weeklong sex strike in August to try to force the president of the West African nation to resign. Members of “Let’s Save Togo” planned to withhold sex from their husbands to pressure the men to take action against President Faure Gnassingbe. The opposition says his family has ruled Togo for too long. He became president in 2005, shortly after the death of his father — who had held power for 38 years. Withholding sex for political goals has a long history. The idea appears in the theater of ancient Greece. In the play “Lysistrata,” the women of Athens decide to deny their husbands sex until the men end the Peloponnesian War. But do sex strikes work? Pepper Schwartz is a sociology professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. She says the idea is good for making news headlines, but it takes a lot of work. She says the sex strike is a good way to make a point for a few days. But she says that it probably will not work over a long period of time. She also notes that: “if you do stick to it too long, you might lose that other person’s willingness to support your issue.”But pro-democracy activists in Togo say a sex strike during the civil war in Liberia gave them cause for hope. In 2003, Liberia had been through 14 years of war. Leaders of the group Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace organized a series of nonviolent actions. They included a sex strike. The actions earned the group’s leader a share of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. Leymah Gbowee shared the prize with two other women, including Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. She became Africa’s first democratically-elected female president in 2006. The third winner was Tawakkul Karman, a women’s rights activist in Yemen. Yaliwe Clarke teaches gender studies at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. She says that the women in Togo can inspire other women in Africa just like the Mass Action for Peace in Liberia did. But sociology professor Pepper Schwartz says women need to hold real power in order for something like a sex strike to work. “They only work in proportion to the amount of power women have in a society,” she says. “In other words, you have to have a certain amount of power already to tell your husband no.” She says this depends on having a society where men respect the opinions and wishes of women. For VOA Learning English, I’m Laurel Bowman. (Adapted from a radio program broadcast 05Sep2012)
Nigerian pilgrims leave the arrival hall of Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport
The government of Nigeria has suspended all flights for Muslims seeking to perform the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia in protest of the kingdom’s deportation of hundreds of Nigerian women.
According to media reports, about 1,000 Nigerian women intending to make the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca were detained at airports in Jeddah and Medina since Sunday, apparently for arriving without any male escorts (which is forbidden during the Hajj).
Nigerian officials, who are flying to Saudi Arabia to complain, have claimed that the rule requiring women be accompanied by a male relative during the Hajj would be lifted for Nigerian citizens.
The BBC reports that there has been an understanding in the past that Nigerian women were exempt from travelling with a male relative – a requirement for women on the Hajj.
Nigerian diplomats say the agreement between the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria and the Saudi authorities allows visas to be issued for Nigerian women going to Mecca as long as they are accompanied by Hajj committee officials.
Aggrieved pilgrim speaks to reporters in Nigeria
BBC Nigeria correspondent Will Ross says it is not clear if this action was taken as part of an effort to clamp down on people entering Saudi Arabia illegally to work.
Nigeria’s speaker of the House of Representatives is leading a government delegation – to include the Foreign Affairs minister – to Saudi Arabia in an attempt to resolve the situation.
More than two million Muslims are due to converge on Mecca for this year’s Hajj, which is set to culminate over a four-day period somewhere between 24-29 October depending on lunar observations.
The Hajj is one of the pillars of Islam, which every adult Muslim must undertake at least once in their life if they can afford it and are physically able.
Congolese women ready for change ( EarthTreasureVase)
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