| Altering the Hijab to the
Rules of the Game. [Kenya]
Girls start wearing the free-flowing Somali hijab at
the age of 7. They keep it on, wrapped around their heads and draped loosely over
their bodies, for the rest of their lives, at least when men are around. For Ibrahim
and other women, the hijab is the only attire they know, one they say they grow used to
and do not see as overly restrictive, despite temperatures that routinely exceed nearly 38
degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit). But when it comes to sports, the
traditional hijab can be problematic, they say. The girls wear pants underneath to
improve mobility, but they still get tangled from time to time. Changing the
uniform, however, as a corporate partnership with the UN refugee agency is about to do,
presents a quandary. "Most of us are Muslims and we want to preserve our
religion," Ibrahim said. "We don't want pressure from the community."
But pressure is certainly part of the game. Girls' sports are still a novelty
in Somali culture, so much so that the volleyball players here have been denounced by
sheiks for supposed unladylike acts, like running or extending their arms in the air, and
gawked at by boys unfamiliar with seeing women doing much more than cooking or cleaning or
carting water on their heads. "Some people think that if girls play sports they
are prostitutes," Ibrahim said. "Our parents were embarrassed. They
had bad feelings about girls playing outside." |
| Shelters
for Women 'Little More Than Prisons'. [Libya] Libyan women and girls accused of
staining their families' honor were being held indefinitely in social rehabilitation
facilities that were little more than prisons, the Human Rights Watch pressure group said
on Wednesday. Libyan authorities said the institutions were shelters for women and
girls who were "vulnerable to engaging in moral misconduct", the group said in a
report. But most of these women were held there against their will or went there
because no genuine shelters for victims of violence existed in Libya, the report said.
The detainees, some as young as 16, had no right to contest their confinement in a
court of law. Typically, they had no legal representation. |
| BLM Distributes 20,000 Female
Condoms. [Malawi]
Sexual reproductive and healthcare providers Banja Lamtsogolo
(BLM) are this year expected to distribute 20,000 female condoms to young women to protect
them from sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies, officials have
disclosed. BLM's Community Outreach Manager Clement Naunje told The Chronicle in an
interview recently in Blantyre that
the condoms would be distributed through youth
community based distribution agents (YCBDAs) located in the country's three regions.
He said BLM has already trained 20 young people who will be sent to some districts
to teach their fellow youths on how to use the female condoms. "These twenty
young people will assist us in distributing the condoms and we have the full confidence
that the condoms will reduce sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS," he
said. Naunje said it is high time young women in the country were empowered and
advised on how to make their own decision. "It is our wish to
have a better Malawi
in the near future, that's why we are trying our best to empower young people and provide
them with good information about sexual and reproductive health issues so that they should
be able to know how their bodies operate," he said. |
| Priest 'Ordered
Women to Strip'. [Malawi]
Police in the southern African country of Malawi have
arrested a priest for ordering 15 women to strip while he conducted special prayers for
them, said a spokesperson on Tuesday. Moyenda Chitimbe said that the priest from
Bible Believers, one of several Pentecostal churches that had mushroomed in the country,
was arrested after one of the women filed a complaint. Chitimbe said the priest
asked the women to disrobe while he conducted "special prayers", adding that the
"women obliged and remained naked while the pastor gazed at their nudity".
The priest was due to appear in court for charges of violating the modesty of
women, which carried a minimum sentence of 18 months. |
| Zuma Raped Me,
Woman Tells Court. [South
Africa]
An HIV-positive AIDS activist testified in
court on Monday that South
Africa's former Deputy President Jacob Zuma raped her, in a
case that could end the charismatic leader's political career. The 31-year-old
woman, a longtime Zuma family friend, gave graphic testimony as she took the stand for the
first time. As Zuma supporters demonstrated outside the Johannesburg courthouse, his
accuser narrated how the man once seen as South Africa's likely next president offered to
"tuck her in" and then had sex with her without a condom and against her will.
"I thought 'oh no, uncle (Zuma) cannot be naked, he is on top of me and I am
in his house,'" the woman said between sobs in the hushed courtroom. "I
thought this can't be happening. And at that point I faced reality that I was just
about to be raped." Zuma, once seen as the frontrunner to succeed President
Thabo Mbeki in 2009 but now embroiled in separate sex and graft scandals, sat stony-faced
during the woman's testimony, which followed his own not-guilty plea earlier on Monday. |
| Mak Female Students Prepared for Job
Market. [Uganda]
As the job market in Uganda becomes more
competitive, Makerere
University
has conducted a mentoring workshop for final year female students and Alumni beneficiaries
of the University\Carnegie female scholarship initiative (IFS). The two-day workshop
that was held at Makerere University Gender Main Streaming Division on Saturday 18, aimed
at enabling participants acquire knowledge and skills in employment strategies and the
world of work through helping the students appreciate the nature of the labour market and
its requirements. It is also aimed at developing the student's capabilities, talents
and potentials, as well as acquiring an empowering outlook to life and the world of work.
While opening the workshop, Amos Olal -Odur the University Academic Registrar,
advised the FSI beneficiaries to be decisive, set goals and pursue them if they are to
succeed in getting employment after university. Odur said the FSI beneficiaries
should prepare for the market by putting attention on both their academic performance and
the quality of relationships they build because the people they relate to could be the
ones to help them get a job. |