In 2003, Sylvia Tamale was named as the “Worst Woman of the Year” by a conservative bloc within Uganda. Working at the time as an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at Makerere University (she later became its Dean), she was vilified for weeks within one of Kampala’s major daily newspapers, New Vision, as responsible for everything from the moral degeneration of the nation to the reason Ugandan teenagers were going to go to hell.

Jane Bennett, African Gender Institute, University of Cape Town

Women are claiming a leading role the political reform movement in Malaysia. In July this year, around 50,000 Malaysians braved a massive state-sponsored onslaught against freedom of expression and freedom of assembly to gather in the nation's capital to demand electoral reform.

By Sonia Randhawa, Director, Centre for Independent Journalism, Malaysia

HRC Resolution 16/3, “Promoting human rights and fundamental freedoms through a better understanding of traditional values of humankind” stresses that “traditions shall not be invoked to justify harmful practices violating universal human rights norms and standards”, thereby acknowledging that traditions are sometimes invoked to justify human rights violations.

Concerns with a traditional values approach to human rights

Hundreds of sessions will be taking place throughout the Forum, each one of them exploring key questions in relation to movement building in a way that enables both critical reflection and creative learning.

It does not seem so long ago when the women’s health movement marked a major victory in Cairo, as the United Nations Conference on Population and Development 1994 voted in favor of a broad-based reproductive health and development agenda to replace the narrow demographic-based obsession with using family planning to curb population growth rates.

9 February 2011, World Social Forum, Dakar, Senegal: In this year, 2011, the World Social Forum joins with the peoples of Africa for the third time, following Mali in 2006 and Kenya in 2007. We, women from different parts of the world who have gathered in Dakar, recognizing that uniting our strengths will eventually bring change, confirm our solidarity and our admiration for the struggles of Senegalese women, African women, and women of the world.

In Russian

Региональная Стратегическая Встреча по "Мобилизации ресурсов для организаций по правам женщин и движения в Юго-Восточной Европе, Центральной и Восточной Европе и Содружестве Независимых Государств (ЮВЕ / ЦВЕ / СНГ) " 21-23, октябрь 2010 годаВ трехдневной встречи по мобилизации ресурсов для организаций и движений за права женщин, прошедшей в Тбилиси, участвовало 69 активисток и доноров в области прав женщин из 27 стран региона.

Women's rights activists gathered together at a meeting on Resource Mobilization for Women’s Rights Organizations and Movements in South East Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, and the Commonwealth of Independent States (SEE/CEE/CIS) in October 2010.

Click here to read this information in Russian.

It was just over two years ago that a group of women were brutally murdered in Balochistan. The details have not yet been established, but it seems they were killed by people who had some political clout with the provincial government. The crime was even discussed in the Senate. The story made headlines not so much for the fact of their murder, but because at least some of them were said to have been buried alive. It has not been possible to ascertain the status of the investigation or legal case, if one was ever filed.

By Ayesha Khan

FRIDAY FILE: On the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, AWID revisits struggles and gains for the indivisibility of rights.

By Lejla Medanhodzic

Disability Rights are Human Rights