Sub Saharan Africa

South African women and children are the ones who suffer the most when political parties engage in "civil wars", Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane said on Friday.

"All these men who are leaders of the African countries must understand that when they create civil wars, it is us women and children who suffer the most, [even] when they fight... in the ANC, in Cosatu and in the [SA Communist] Party," she said.

A record number of women were sworn in as legislators as Senegal's new parliament was inaugurated on Monday.

Sixty-four women now have seats in this West African country's 150-member National Assembly, thanks to a law on gender parity.

But the breakthrough made by women candidates has relaunched a debate on the quality of their work in the legislature.

The Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) has launched a program to train women to spearhead citizenship education towards the promotion of peace, transparency and credibility of the December elections.

Dubbed “Promoting democratic citizenship to enhance elections peace, transparency and credibility in Ghana”, it aims at building the capacities of selected women from 15 electoral-violence prone districts to create more awareness about the need for peace.

The number of women in parliament is not enough to show that parliament is gender-sensitive. This was said by Honorable Alphonsine Mukarugema, the chairwoman of Rwanda Women Parliamentary Forum (RWPF) at the occasion of a consultative meeting organized by the forum, which took place yesterday at the parliament with a theme: 'A Gender Sensible Parliament'.

The meeting was organized in order to understand what a gender-sensitive parliament looks like and to conduct a self-assessment of the Rwandan parliament towards those criteria.

An umbrella body of more than a hundred women groups from across fourteen chiefdoms in Kailahun district, the Kailahun Women in Governance Network KWIG, has expressed grave concerns over the yet-to-be actualised 30% quota proposed for Sierra Leonean women to actively participate in the day today administration of the country, saying it is long overdue.

According to the women, despite assurances by President Ernest Koroma to ensure that the bill is passed into law, the document has been gathering dust at the House of Parliament.

Women in political leadership in the three northern regions have held a debate focusing on the programmes of their political parties, which seek to build inclusive government.

Read the complete story at Ghana News Agency, published 25 July 2012.

Beatrice Boateng, a member of parliament with the New Patriotic Party, Ghana’s official opposition to the ruling New Democratic Congress, has earned her place among the country’s lawmakers. As she takes her seat in parliament, she does so having overcoming the numerous obstacles that face all would-be female politicians in Ghana, including defamation and financial difficulties. It is little wonder then that when visitors observe Ghana’s legislators in action, one thing is immediately clear – there are very few women who sit in the West African country’s parliament.