Nigeria: Chibok, A Living Nightmare, Find our Daughters
Women across Nigeria are protesting the abduction of 234 schoolgirls from Chibok, in north east Nigeria, which took place on Monday April the 14th. Starting from Wednesday the 30th of April, protests and rallies are planned in Abuja, Ibadan, Maiduguri,…
Policing our Sexuality: The Conservatives War Arsenal Grows {Uganda, Anti-Pornography Act}
“Policing our Sexuality: The Conservatives War Arsenal Grows” by Happy Mwende Kinyili for the Queer African Network The recently passed bills in Nigeria, the Same-Sex Prohibition Act, and in Uganda, the Anti-Homosexuality Act and the Anti-Pornography Act, have raised the…
Odi Massacre & Origins of Militancy in Ijawland
Kaiama – December 1998 Kaiama is a small town in Western Ijaw, about half an hour’s drive from Yenagoa, the capital of Bayelsa State. Historically Kaiama is famous for being the birth place of Major Isaac Adaka Boro, an Ijaw…
Battle Between the Stone & the Tree: Sharia & Women in Nigeria
Ayesha Imam and the women she worked with for years in the Nigerian organization BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights possess those very traits. The group, founded in 1996, fights to protect women’s rights in the maze of the Nigerian legal system, with its overlapping religious, secular and customary laws and courts.
Imam tells me they use tools from whichever system can “recuperate rights,” believing it is often possible to arrive at similar conclusions by working through Muslim discourses or international human rights. “My issue,” she underscores, “is not where you come from, but where you arrive at.”
Venus Noire – A film about Saartjie Baartman
Via Shadow and Act – The story of Saartjie Baartman [Parts 1 & 2]The film is in French with subtitles but unfortunately I havent had much success in watching it. I would love to hear from anyone who has seen…
Nompumelelo: Decomposed Bitterly
From HOLAAFrica – Nompumelelo’s current research focused on women who are killed and their bodies merely lie ‘Decomposed Bitterly’ (a reference to the concept of Human Traffic). She says: ‘I use my body as subject matter. In the images shown…
Queer interventions – When victories in America’s culture wars become imperial policy
It is nearly two months since the Nigerian Senate passed the Same Sex Marriage Bill [SSMB 2013] yet the Bill is still awaiting presidential approval. It’s not clear why Goodluck Jonathan is dithering over a decision but possibly because of…
Sentencing of the Oxford rapists: – Women protest both rape and racism
Seven men will be sentenced for 43 offences – ranging from rape and conspiracy to rape to supplying Class A drugs to using an instrument to procure a miscarriage – against six underage girls. But what about the police officers and social workers whose refusal to act enabled these rapes? Will they be prosecuted for aiding and abetting rape? Were they involved in other ways? Is that why they didn’t act against rape? Or is it their bias against working class children and against rape victims generally?
Haiti – Feminist Series 4, In conversation with Flaurantin Marie Enise
Jalouzi is a hillside neighborhood of about 200,000 people overlooking lower Petion-Ville. It is accessible from two roads, one at the top and one below. The view from the top is stunning. From here you can see Port-au-Prince looking east…
Gendercide
From Bernedette Muthien gendercide it took a full week of straitjacketing generations of genocidal femicidal trauma for the clay dam wall to explode and flood me in torrents of collective grief a poet with no words a lifelong activist struck dumb…
Outrage! & One Billion Rising, Whats the Point? Lessons from GBV movement building in Haiti
From Thought Leader – Talia Meer asks what is the point of “1 billion Rising” and from Women and Beyond the Global – Wondering about Outrage! beyond personal gratification? Particularly when it is selective, ie where was the outrage when…
A crime against humanity
In this modern world of instant information, have we become inured to horror? Every day we are exposed to pictures and films of extreme violence, they flicker through our consciousness, moving on to the newest examples of human propensity for…
The Arrogance or Ignorance of Privilege
“What is it that women want?â€â€œDon’t they have enough already?â€â€œWhat more do they want?â€â€œDo they now want us to live in their petticoats?†“Soon we shall be singing ‘majesty’ and curtseying to the end of the world for them, isn’t that where we are headed at this rate.â€â€œIf they have food on their tables and roofs over their heads, what more do they want?
#16Days: AWID Condemns Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill
The Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) strongly condemns the repeated efforts, now for the third time, to introduce the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda’s Parliament. We stand in solidarity with Ugandans who are calling for their government to withdraw…
Hate Crimes South Africa: 2001 – July 2012
Graphic designed by comrade Katty Vandenberghe in collaboration with Iranti-Org
Zanele Muholi: Raising consciousness through art
Is their a link between the defacement of “The Spear”, the painting of  Jacob Zuma which shows his genitals and the theft of five years of Zanele Muholi’s work?  Is free expression through art or any other medium under…
Reflections on Charles Taylor and Justice
Much has changed since I covered the first day of Charles Taylor’s trial for Pambazuka News on June 4, 2007. That day, he failed to show up to court, calling the case against him a “farce.” Today, he was in…
IWD: We the poor women in this rich world
*I would like to sincerely apologise to those who follow my writings for my long absence. Among other things I have spent the past month focused on lobbying the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women,…
Interview with the cast of Pray the Devil Back to Hell
“Pray the Devil Back to Hell” Robtel Pailey interviews the cast and members of the production team. The film is available in full on PBS along with four other films in the series “Women War and Peace“. Listen here
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