She probably won't become a second
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberian president and first woman in Africa to be elected in this office, has a lot more international experience to begin with. Nevertheless Malinese
Sidibé Aminata Diallo will make history. On Sunday she will be the first woman running for president in the history of the West-African country. A candidate for an environmental party, she doesn't stand a chance, but women's organisations hope she'll make way for other female candidates in the future.
African women should get more involved in science and technical professions, according to Unesco. The UN-organisation for education, science and culture wants girls on the continent to take an in interest in a career in science or technique.
Claudia Harvey of Unesco in Namibia declared this
last week at a training for girls in science in the Namibian capital of Windhoek. The aim fits right into number three of the
Millennium Goals: putting an end to gender differences in primary and secundary education. Whether this target - that western countries don't even manage to realize - will be reached by 2015, remains to be seen.
Women in Uganda will no longer be punished by law when they cheat on their husbands. Before it was a crime for a married woman to have sex outside wedlock. If caught, they could be fined or thrown in jail. This did not apply for the men in the East-African country. The Ugandan Constitutional Court declared this week that this
provision was discriminatory for women and declared the law unconstitutional. Will the law that criminalises homosexual acts be next? This one only applies to men. Lesbians apparently are an inconceivable phenomenon in Uganda.
I am a freelance journalist from the Netherlands addicted to Africa. I write mainly about social economic issues, women and globalisation related topics. I travel to sub-Saharan Africa regularly to write articles. The last couple of years I spent a lot of time reporting in the Great Lakes area. Congo, Rwanda, Uganda... These and other African countries have gotten under my skin. Every trip seems to evoke a new one. I am currenty working on my second book that will be about urbanisation in Africa. For that I'll be living in six different African cities the next year and a half: Luanda, Maputo, Goma, Jinja, Ibadan and Bobo-Dioulasso.
People I've interviewed abroad always ask me if they can read the article, thinking I'd write it in English. When I tell them that my stories are written in Dutch, they're dissapointed. Who speaks this language anyway? This is why I decided to give my website in Dutch an English equivalent. Inevitably it will be less extensive than the Dutch blog, but I'll keep it updated with the most important developments. Starting of course with my book
'A Night in a Mortar' on women in Africa that has been published this September.
mail me if you have any questions or remarks.
click here to go to the main page of this blog in English.
She probably won't become a second Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberian president and first woman in Africa to be elected in this office, has a lot more international experience to begin with. Nevertheless Malinese Sidibé Aminata Diallo will make history. On Sunday she will be the first woman running for president in the history of the West-African country. A candidate for an environmental party, she doesn't stand a chance, but women's organisations hope she'll make way for other female candidates in the future.
African women should get more involved in science and technical professions, according to Unesco. The UN-organisation for education, science and culture wants girls on the continent to take an in interest in a career in science or technique. Claudia Harvey of Unesco in Namibia declared this last week at a training for girls in science in the Namibian capital of Windhoek. The aim fits right into number three of the Millennium Goals: putting an end to gender differences in primary and secundary education. Whether this target - that western countries don't even manage to realize - will be reached by 2015, remains to be seen.
Women in Uganda will no longer be punished by law when they cheat on their husbands. Before it was a crime for a married woman to have sex outside wedlock. If caught, they could be fined or thrown in jail. This did not apply for the men in the East-African country. The Ugandan Constitutional Court declared this week that this provision was discriminatory for women and declared the law unconstitutional. Will the law that criminalises homosexual acts be next? This one only applies to men. Lesbians apparently are an inconceivable phenomenon in Uganda.
I am a freelance journalist from the Netherlands addicted to Africa. I write mainly about social economic issues, women and globalisation related topics. I travel to sub-Saharan Africa regularly to write articles. The last couple of years I spent a lot of time reporting in the Great Lakes area. Congo, Rwanda, Uganda... These and other African countries have gotten under my skin. Every trip seems to evoke a new one. I am currenty working on my second book that will be about urbanisation in Africa. For that I'll be living in six different African cities the next year and a half: Luanda, Maputo, Goma, Jinja, Ibadan and Bobo-Dioulasso.
