Civil Society

The women in the airy, well-lit room could be women anywhere talking of things that women often talk about. An adult son who won’t contribute to the household expenses. A daughter who is finding it difficult to adjust to married life. A husband who threatens to get a second wife.

Former first lady and Mozambican education minister Graça Machel’s advocacy work in women’s financial inclusion will not extend to a return to active mainstream politics.

She was speaking exclusively to Independent Newspapers on the edges of the African Development Bank’s Women’s Economic Summit in Lusaka, Zambia, on Friday.

Since the death of her husband Nelson Mandela, Machel has returned to public life.

Mu Sochua’s arrest by Cambodian authorities on charges of insurrection was hardly the biggest international news headline in a week of war, death and destruction on front pages and throughout news feeds. Indeed, after the elected opposition Member of Parliament and five others were taken into custody after a clash in Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park over the rights and wages of Cambodian garment workers, coverage was understandably scant against the horrific backdrop of Gaza and Ukraine.

The National Institute of Legislative Studies (NILS) has identified the low number of women in Nigerian parliament as the reason for the failure of gender-based bills in the legislature, adding that it is unacceptable that only seven per cent of lawmakers are women.

Director general of the institute, Dr Ladi Hamalai, while speaking yesterday at a round table organised by NILS and UNDP/DGD for civil societies and community based organisations in Abuja said advocacy must be explored towards ensuring an increase in the next elections.

The Tibetan Women's Association and its global network of regional chapters said they have successfully organized a series of actions during the 33rd Kalachakra initiation offered by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and held in Ladakh from July 03-14, 2014.

An Azerbaijani delegation led by chairwoman of the State Committee for Family, Women and Children Affairs Hijran Huseynova will attend the OSCE Gender Equality Review Conference to take place in the Austrian capital of Vienna on July 10-11.