Advocacy & Lobbying
Every election year, Kenya has the same conversation. Where are the women? Why are so few of them on the ballot? And the answers tend to point back at women themselves, their confidence, their readiness and their willingness to step forward. Rarely do we turn the spotlight where it belongs; on the system that makes stepping forward so costly.
Kenya's Constitution is among the most progressive on the continent on gender equality. Yet more than a decade since the two-thirds gender rule was enshrined in law, it remains unmet. Parliament has failed repeatedly to legislate it into reality. And so a constitutional promise sits on paper while the political landscape remains stubbornly, predictably male.
Last week, a gathering of Kenyan women, lawyers, diplomats, conservationists, business leaders, women who have spent careers navigating power in its many forms, sat together and spoke with rare candour about exactly this. Not in the language of activism or advocacy, but in the plain, direct way of people who have lived it. That conversation, and what it revealed about leadership, politics, and the price women pay for public life, is at the heart of this week's cover story. It is worth your time. What struck me reading through it was how consistent the story is, how little the barriers have changed regardless of the generation telling them.
As communities across Ontario prepare for the 2026 municipal elections, Run Where You Are – Say Yes! is calling on women and gender-diverse people to take the next step toward public leadership.
The free, non-partisan virtual event is produced by six grassroots campaign schools across Ontario, including Grey Bruce’s electHER Now. The online event will take place on Tuesday, Feb. 24, from 7 to 8:30 p.m., and is open to participants across the province.
Building on the momentum of the 2025 Run Where You Are initiative, Say Yes! is designed for those who are curious about running for office, actively considering a campaign, or seeking clarity on what leadership could look like in their own community. The free event focuses on breaking down barriers, addressing self-doubt, and offering practical insight from those who have already said “yes” to leadership.
“Many women don’t always recognize just how ready they already are for leadership,” says Laura Wood, co-founder of electHER Now. “The Say Yes event will help people see that the skills they possess today have prepared them for leadership at the local political table tomorrow."
The virtual panel will feature municipal leaders from across Ontario who will share candid reflections on their paths to public office, including lessons learned, challenges faced, and what they wish they had known before running.
Over the weekend of November 6 and 7, 2025, thousands of Brazilians took to the streets to call attention to the rampant number of cases of violence against women. Since then, a new cycle of brutal stories occupied the news. Among them was a woman who jumped from a moving car after being kidnapped and stabbed by her ex-partner. Another woman was killed, and her body was discovered in a trash can, with her hands and feet bound. The body of an 18-year-old trans woman was brought to a police station by a ride-share driver who admitted to having killed her; he was freed right after. In another case, a 25-year-old woman died after being beaten and falling from the 10th floor of a building — her partner was arrested as the main suspect.
The number of cases of gender violence has been worrisome for some time in the country, even with laws increasing penalties for aggressors. But what are the reasons for the apparent surge in reported cases? To understand this context, Global Voices interviewed Isabella Matosinhos, a researcher for the Brazilian Forum for Public Security (Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública).
For Kgomotso Modise, a South African journalist covering courts and criminal justice, online harassment has become a daily reality. “The insults are very sexual,” she explains to Global Voices in an interview, noting that her male colleagues expressing similar views never face comparable abuse. Her opinions are routinely sexualized and delegitimized. When she posted content criticizing extrajudicial killings in her country, the backlash escalated into a violation: trolls retrieved childhood photos from her Facebook account and posted them alongside threats of sexual violence against her and her underage niece.
But the harm extends far beyond individual journalists. Cybercrime accounts for more than 30 percent of all reported crime in West and East Africa, according to Interpol’s 2025 Africa Cyberthreat Assessment Report. Two-thirds of African member countries surveyed said that cyber-related crimes accounted for a medium-to-high share of all crimes, with online scams, ransomware, business email compromise, and digital sextortion among the most reported threats. Digital threats now reach ordinary users, public institutions, and essential services, creating conditions where intimidation and harmful content can spread easily.
Across Africa, Reporters Without Borders has documented sustained online harassment and surveillance targeting women journalists in Africa, noting that digital abuse has become an emerging barrier to press freedom. This year’s 16 Days of Activism (November 25 to December 10) against gender-based violence (GBV) comes at a time when online harm is shaping public life as much as offline violence. Women who comment on public issues, work in journalism, or engage in civic life face increasing hostility that limits their participation.
However, in Senegal, this right largely remains mere words. Human rights organizations, such as the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the Senegalese League of Human Rights (LSDH), and the African Assembly for the Defence of Human Rights (RADDHO), a national NGO based in the Senegalese capital Dakar, denounce the State’s non-compliance with its international commitments. In 2024, these three organizations published their Dual Hardship report, warning that Article 14 of the Maputo Protocol has not been transposed into national legislation, and that women victims of rape or incest must consequently carry their pregnancy to term.
In Senegal, Article 305 of the Criminal Code prohibits abortion, except under limited therapeutic circumstances intended to save a mother’s life. This situation drives many women, including the victims of rape or incest, towards illegal, dangerous, and often life-threatening practices.
According to Prison-Insider, a France-based platform that shares information on prisons across the world, up to 46 percent of the women held in Liberté VI prison in Senegal are convicted of infanticide, demonstrating the scale of the problem.
While the right to abortion is barely recognized, the reasons are not only legal, but also socio-cultural.
Exile Hub is one of Global Voices’ partners in Southeast Asia, emerging in response to the 2021 coup in Myanmar, focusing on empowering journalists and human rights defenders. This edited article is republished under a content partnership agreement.
Kant Kaw’s journey into journalism officially began in 2009, but her story started long before that. As a child, she devoured books of every kind, captivated by the power of language. She dreamed of becoming a writer, yet understood early that writing alone could not sustain her. So she pursued practical jobs while holding on to her passion.
Everything changed the day she discovered journalism. For her, it was the perfect convergence of purpose and livelihood. It allowed her to write, to witness, and to serve the public. Fifteen years later, she remains in the field, saying that she never stopped loving the work.
“I absolutely love thinking up and writing news and article ideas. I can't give it up.”
Over the past decade Somaliland has seen a worrying convergence of political exclusion for women and active pushback against progressive sexual-offences laws and gender-equity measures. The result is not only weaker legal protection for survivors, but social environments that enable sexual violence and silence victims. This article examines recent examples and reports, connects them to the rollback of protections and low female political representation, and outlines the human-rights and social costs for Somaliland’s women and girls.
This article is released by the Women’s Human Rights, Education & Environment Association (WHEEA), with KOMBOA through the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA) Network. It aims to expose the growing impact of backlash against the women’s rights movement in Somaliland, particularly following the rejection of progressive sexual-offences legislation. By documenting recent cases of sexual violence, political exclusion, and institutional failures, the article highlights how resistance to women’s rights has deepened impunity and vulnerability for women and girls. In addition to analysis, the article provides concrete policy recommendations for lawmakers, religious leaders, civil society, and international partners to strengthen protection, accountability, and women’s political participation in Somaliland.
This brief provides an overview of how the UN system has advanced global efforts to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls (VAWG) over the past five years. Drawing from the contributions of 36 UN entities and mechanisms for the Inventory of United Nations activities to end violence against women and girls, the brief highlights collective progress achieved through coordinated action, joint programming and partnerships with governments, civil society and women’s rights organizations. The brief documents the UN system’s role in advancing global norms and standards, with notable developments in violence in the work environment, technology-facilitated violence, conflict-related sexual violence and harmful practices. It showcases how coordination mechanisms and flagship joint initiatives—such as the spotlight initiative, the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women and other inter-agency programmes—have mobilized resources, strengthened laws and policies, expanded access to survivor-centered services, scaled up prevention efforts and improved data and evidence. At the same time, the brief underscores persistent gaps, including uneven implementation of laws, limited financing, fragmented prevention efforts, data challenges and growing backlash against gender equality. It emphasizes the central role of women’s rights organizations and feminist movements in driving sustainable change. Looking ahead to 2030, the brief calls for the UN system to deepen coordination, strengthen accountability, invest in evidence-based interventions at scale and reinforce locally led, whole-of-society approaches to end VAWG.
Mitigating violence against women in politics in Africa – insights from Ghana, Kenya and Zimbabwe
A new book maps how electoral violence affects women in local politics in Ghana, Kenya and Zimbabwe, showing how they are systematically targeted in ways that limit their participation and help maintain male-dominated political systems.
Drawing on 134 interviews with politically active women, this new book – Making politics safer –documents a wide range of violence and abuse, including physical and sexual attacks, psychological pressure, economic manipulation and symbolic humiliation. It also highlights intimidation, online harassment, disinformation and violence within political parties as common tools used to sideline women.
Younger and unmarried women, those from marginalised ethnic groups, and those in opposition parties are found to face the highest risks. Even in countries where gender quotas exist, such as Kenya and Zimbabwe, a higher number of women in elected positions has not resulted in safer conditions.
Publication date: 16 October 2025
Twenty-five years after the United Nations adopted Resolution 1325, the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda is both a landmark in diplomacy and a study in unfulfilled promise. Its most profound achievement has been to force open a conversation about the gendered power structures that fuel conflict. But that opening is narrowing. Escalating wars, a backlash against gender justice and a collapse in funding now threaten to strip the agenda of its transformative edge. The WPS agenda remains an essential tool for women peacebuilders. Whether it survives as a force for justice depends on whether the global community backs its principles with the resources and political will to make them real. Without that, the resolution’s 25th anniversary will mark the start of its decline, not its maturity.
This report was written by researchers from the Organization for Justice and Accountability in the Horn of Africa (OJAH) and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR).
The report benefited from reviews by members of PHR staff, the PHR Advisory Council, and the PHR Board of Directors, as well as members of the OJAH Board of Directors.
The research team would like to recognize the strength and resilience of the survivors whose experiences and stories are reflected in this data, as well as the dedication of the health professionals who provided services and documented these violations—often at grave risk to their personal safety.
About Physicians for Human Rights (PHR)
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) uses medicine and science to document and draw attention to human rights violations. PHR was founded on the belief that physicians and other health professionals possess unique skills that lend significant credibility to the investigation and documentation of human rights abuses.
In response to the scourge of sexual violence, PHR launched its Program on Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones in 2011. The program works to confront impunity for sexual violence in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Iraq, Kenya, Myanmar, and Ukraine.
PHR has conducted research to understand the scale and scope of conflict-related sexual violence in various conflicts and contexts, including in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Myanmar, and Sierra Leone.
About the Organization for Justice and Accountability in the Horn of Africa (OJAH)
The Organization for Justice and Accountability in the Horn of Africa (OJAH) is an independent and impartial organization dedicated to strengthening justice and accountability mechanisms in the Horn of Africa through evidence collection and preservation.
The organization’s mission is to deter war crimes, crimes against humanity, conflict-related sexual violence, and other severe human rights abuses across the Greater Horn of Africa. It pursues this mission by conducting documentation and investigations, advancing the environment for justice and accountability, preserving and analyzing materials, and supporting international justice and accountability actors and efforts.
Full report here.
This report advocates for thorough protection of human rights in the digital age, emphasizing the strength of constitutional safeguards over ordinary legislation. As digital technologies increasingly influence civil and political rights, online as well as offline, robust constitutional frameworks are essential to address new challenges such as unwarranted surveillance, censorship and data monopolies. Ensuring adequate constitutional protection helps anchor fundamental rights in an evolving digital landscape.
Click here to read the full report.