Noncedo Pulana lacks many things, but she is certainly not short of confidence as she prepares to stand for election as Khayelitsha ward councillor. She feels her long years as an activist in the sprawling township have prepared her to do a better job.
An hour and fifteen minutes each day: Melina Kalunga has plenty of time to measure how long it takes to resolve a legal battle over Malawi's Electoral Commission.
John Garang, the revered late leader of the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement, once said that women are the "the poorest of the poor and the marginalised of the marginalised". As the reality of an independent South Sudan approaches, the region's women have vowed they will not remain second class citizens.
"People living with disability face all sorts of discrimination. We are discriminated against at job interviews in schools. Everyday is a battle to remain positive in the face of a world that is too bent on dismissing those among us that do not meet the standard of what is normal", explains Mishi Juma, a disabled community leader from the Coast region.
Twenty years after independence, representation of women in senior government structures and in Parliament is declining in Namibia. According to the latest demographic survey results of August 2010, out of a population of around 2 million, women outnumber men 10:9. In 2001, the ratio was 94 males per 100 females.
"I do politics every day, but partisan politics? No, thank you," says Jane Ragoo, long-time trade unionist and social worker. She believes in working to bring about change in society and improve people’s lives but has no interest in clambering onto a truck to campaign for office.
While some countries like Liberia can boast that they have a female President, Kenya is still grappling with allowing women room to exercise their leadership roles in Parliament and at local government level.
Research has shown that women account for more than half of the population of any country. This is reflected in the 2010 Census results, where there are slightly more women than men in Kenya.
Hundreds of residents from civil society organisations marched in the streets of Bulawayo on Dec. 1 to mark the 16 days of Activism Against Violence Against Women and Girls . But sex workers and members of gay groups were barred by police from joining the demonstration.
Tasha Ncube* has no kind words for the police. Early last month, the 31-year-old mother of two was beaten several times by her husband over what she says were small arguments. This was the first time in a marriage that has gone for years without any such occurrence.
No sooner had Mariness Luhanga announced her intention to contest local elections in Mzimba district in northern Malawi, than she was summoned to appear before a village court on allegations of insulting men.
To see how women's associations in the Democratic Republic of Congo are helping their members improve their livelihoods, just follow the hubbub you can hear from Justine Kakesa's office: the Kikwit 2 market is bursting with merchandise made by women.
Gender training for peacekeeping operations "is not something you do for two weeks before you go for deployment," says Florence Butegwa, UNIFEM representative to the African Union (AU) and U.N. Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).
Women in the Sudanese region of Darfur have been raped with impunity since the start of the conflict there in 2003. Now a campaign to reform the rape law is gaining momentum in the country, promoted by Alliance 149, a national coalition born in late 2009.
Civil society in the DRC's eastern province of South Kivu is determined that meaningful action will follow from the publication of the U.N.'s Mapping Project, a report detailing some of the most serious human rights violations by state and non-state actors in the DRC between 1993 and 2003.
It is break time at the Victory Chapel School in Congo Town. Children dressed in their royal blue uniforms with bright yellow and white trim fight to get under the shade of the only mango tree in the yard. It is the start of the dry season and the scorching sun will soon be almost unbearable to stand in.
Florence Shagwa, a female councillor at the Gaborone City Council, considers her three-year business qualification worthless.
"Voice for the voiceless" is the slogan adorning the walls of Liberia’s first and Africa’s second radio station for women.
In Malawi, if both a girl and boy are born into a poor family, it will naturally be the boy in whom all the financial resources are invested.
In the rural KwaZulu Natal town of Jozini, Thembeni Madlopha-Mthethwa has been the town’s mayor for a decade. And in contrast to the rest of the country, which has experienced numerous civil strikes and service delivery complaints, Jozini has rarely had any such problems.
Regina Namukasa has been twice dispossessed – first when her husband died and his clan left her out when dividing up his estate, and again when she was denied a share in her father's land. But this time she's fighting back.