Sub Saharan Africa

Female politicians feel that their male counterparts enjoy more space in the media because they have more resources.

Women Parliamentarians attending a Gender and Elections workshop in Kadoma last week said politics in Zimbabwe was no stroll in the park and acknowledged that they faced many obstacles in achieving representation in governance.

They said their chances of entering the political arena were hindered by a plethora of challenges that revolved around gender stereotyping.

As the 2015 general elections approach many womena re beginning to call for free elections without corruption to give a chance for everyone to participate. They held that the current system only allows for the participation of the afluent and marginalizes the poor - the larger bulk of which happen to be women.

We invite our users to read the full article published September 10th 2014 

WINDHOEK - The National Secretary of the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) Women’s League is of the view that corruption will drastically decrease if more capable women occupy leadership positions.

Speaking to New Era just after the official proceedings of the RDP Women’s League Central Committee meeting on Saturday, Judith Melekie said: “Women are not impulsive spenders and know how to manage finances.” 

The security services detained 16 activists of the "No to women's oppression" group, who staged a protest in front of Omdurman women prison today.

The women protested against the detention of women politicians, especially Dr Maryam El Sadig El Mahdi, Co-Vice President of the National Umma Party (NUP), reportedly held in Omdurman's women prison, and Samia Kiir of the Sudanese Congress Party, detained in En Nahud.

We invite our users to read teh complete article published August 28 2014 

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women has launched a report and training manual for building the capacity of stakeholders on Affirmative Action in the country.

The manual titled: "Sociocultural Determinants of Voting Patterns in Nigeria - Reference to Women's Participation and Representation," was expected to serve as guide towards ensuring increased participation of women in the political process.

Somali women have been facing formidable challenges and complain about marginalization in politics but they in turn played a pivotal role in securing peace deals between warring forces on the ground. Among the stumbling blocks are cultural and strict religious beliefs, lack of distant goal, psychological backwardness, rape and domestic violence.  

Following Somali state collapse in 1991, women braced up for arduous tasks by putting their lives on the frontline to make urgently pressing priorities possible and shape their own destinies.

Unfriendly political environmental factors, culture, tradition and religious belief, low level of education as some of the barriers militating against Nigerian women’s participation in politics. Barriers, including gender discrimination, marginalised party policies, lack of confidence and self assertion, family value, among others, also prevent women from playing active roles in the Nigerian political terrain, declaring that these notwithstanding, women still had important roles to play in the political arena.

A REGIONAL research body, Research and Advocacy Unit (RAU), has said although Zimbabwean women are largely marginalised, they still exerted a lot of influence through voting even in the face of serious fears about violence during elections.

STAFF REPORTER

All too often, we measure our progress in the process of gender empowerment by counting the number of woman politicians in Parliament and Cabinet. There is also now a new dynamic in ANC politics with talk of the prospect of a woman leading the organisation and the country next. At first it looked as if President Jacob Zuma was merely being politically correct by saying South Africa could have a woman as president sooner than we think. He repeated the sentiment last week during a briefing with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.