On November 6th, The Womens’ International Perspective (WIP) is hosting “Women as Social, Political and Economic Agents of Change” - our very first New York City event, sponsored by The President’s Office for Diversity & Community Affairs at Teachers College, Columbia University.

The WIP is committed to the belief that women are agents of change. We’re excited to present a panel of distinguished international women who will bring their professional and personal experiences to bear on this topic: Leymah Roberta Gbowee is the Executive Director of the Women’s Peace and Security Network Africa and the principal character of the film Pray the Devil Back to Hell; Dr. Monisha Bajaj is Professor of Education in the Department of International & Transcultural Studies at Teachers College; Gloriana Guillen is the Communications and Marketing Manager for Pro Mujer, an organization that provides Latin American Women with microcredit, healthcare, and training; Nomi Prins is a former Bear Stearns analyst, journalist, author, and senior fellow at Demos.

Women’s perspectives, as demonstrated through our work and the stories we publish, are critical in our quest for understanding and creating viable solutions for the most pressing issues facing our global society. Join us in discovering the insights and solutions that our panelists have made their life’s work. This community conversation in New York is bound to inspire as we continue to create change together.

Throughout the majority of sub-Saharan Africa there is a strong kinship with America, and US elections are closely followed. Since Barack Obama’s relatives hail from Kenya, this election, more than any other, has captured the hearts and attention of most Africans.

Check out this exciting new music video on Barack Obama and the 2008 election campaign. It is stylish, catchy and current.
He is American and a presidential candidate in his country. However, to the people of Kenya, he is the son and pride of their own soil.

Watch this Video

Prostitution is deemed unacceptable in Malawi but the sex trade continues to thrive. Large numbers of women, especially young ones, are seen loitering around street corners, near hotels, bars and other entertainment places.
The United Nations Population Fund’s HIV Prevention Officer Humphreys Shumba says that sex work in Malawi is mainly driven by poverty. The country remains one of the most impoverished in the world and is ranked among the 14 poorest nations by the 2007/2008 United Nations Human Development Index, which ranks countries based on broader indicators of their quality of life including life expectancy, enrollment in school, freedom from disease and other measures.
According to 2008 research findings by the Community Health Department at the University of Malawi, up to 83 percent of prostitutes in Malawi are known to depend solely on sex work for their livelihoods and 95 percent of them have children. Sixty nine percent of the women who are involved in the sex trade are divorced.
Shumba says unprotected sex, which is often practiced by sex workers, is among the key drivers of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Malawi. “Sex work in Malawi is characterized by, among other factors, lower age of entry into the trade where girls as young as 12 years are known to be sex workers,” he says. Since 2005, government has since been deploying child protection officers to find and rehabilitate child prostitutes so they can return to their communities.
Shumba explains that lack of negotiation skills and assertiveness in ensuring safer sex through condom use also aggravates the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted illnesses.
UNFPA has since funded the Family Planning Association of Malawi (FPAM) to work on reducing the transmission of HIV among the prostitutes by empowering them to practice safer sex, and by increasing the sex workers’ access to reproductive health, voluntary counseling and testing.
So far, the law in Malawi is silent on prostitution. However, the police usually carry out night raids and arrest anyone found loitering in entertainment and public places – most of those arrested are prostitutes. The police charge them with minor infractions: either being found Idle and Disorderly, or Rogue and Vagabond - crimes that do not exact harsh punishment.
To fill in the gaps, FPAM is engaging the sex workers by providing them with information, skills for negotiating safer sex (condom use) and alternative livelihood options, says Bessie Nkhwazi, the NGO’s district manager for Lilongwe.
FPAM, the government, NGOs and other service providers in Malawi realize that they cannot stop prostitution overnight, so their focus is largely on HIV prevention. And though FPAM and UNFPA create their workplans with the government, it’s mainly for appearances so they can say the government is somehow involved. Some of the money that FPAM receives comes from the National AIDS Commission, which is a government body, but the government is mainly helping to combat child prostitution through the deployment of child protection officers. The implementation of actual programs, especially those for older prostitutes, are really falling on the NGOs.
“We are addressing the economic and social obstacles faced by those indulging in the sex work trade. The sex workers are undergoing training in business management and they are also being equipped with vocational skills such as tailoring, running hair salons, restaurants and mushroom growing,” says Nkhwazi.
Jane Banda, 25, is one sex worker who has been trained in tailoring. She is waiting for a loan to be provided by UNFPA through FPAM that will set her up with her new business.

October 16th marks World Food Day, an annual global event sponsored by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. The occasion aims to draw our attention to the food crisis affecting nearly 923 million undernourished people around the world, and this year, the sponsors highlighted the related issue of biofuels and the necessity of developing sustainable bioenergy.

The price increase in oil, gas, and other energy sources goes hand in hand with the mounting cost of food. A recent BBC survey found that people, particularly those living in developing countries, are “cutting back on what they eat because food is more expensive.”

Unfortunately, the global food crisis remains buried under headlines devoted to the current financial crisis, as Petra Sorge of Der Spiegel notes. In so many of their articles, our contributors have described how hunger continues to worsen in their countries. We hope to see holistic solutions and policies emerge that connect the dots between the energy, food and financial crises. Hunger cannot be tabled for another day.

Get Involved, Please think about those who have nothing to eat on this day and visit http://www.fao.org/getinvolved/getinvolved-donatenow/en/

More than 20 southern Sudanese women were arrested and beaten for nude dressing, a defiance of the new moral edict.

According to the country’s minister for gender, Mary Kiden Kimbo, between 20 and 30 girls were picked up from different points, whisked into police lorries, taken to police station where some of them were beaten up.

Prior to the police crackdown on young women, the commissioner of Juba county, the capital of southern Sudan, Albert Pitia Redantore, on 2 October ordered a ban on “all bad behaviors, activities and imported illicit cultures” by women. This includes the wearing of trousers, short shirts or skimpy tops.

The young women were arrested after they left church service in Juba on Sunday. Others were rounded up in market places.

The new order was meant to “preserve the cultural values, dignity and achievements of the people of southern Sudan, checking out the intrusion of foreign cultures into our societies, for the sake of bringing up a good generation.”

Heavy penalty awaits anyone who defies the new edict - a practice which Ms Kimbo said was returning to the country to the old days of Shariah. She said such orders can create dangerous situation leading to mob justice, after all, principles of gender equality was enshrined in the regions’s constitutions.

I agree with Ms Kimbo who damned this action as not acceptable: it is not the job of police to judge what is and what is not a correct way to dress in such a manner of blanket punishment.

Should a mother with five children, one of them a pregnant teen and another an infant with special needs, be running for vice president?

The question is being much debated, in newspaper stories and columns, on blogs and Web sites, and, yes, around kitchen tables across the country.
We all know that noone would be asking these questions if she were a man.
No one asked whether Arnold Schwarzenegger should run for governor because he has four children. They looked at Maria, his wonderful wife, and said, what a beautiful family.
A mother doesn’t get the same treatment. This is how the the world has always worked - developed or developing world alike.
As a girl who grew up in Africa, I have always been told that “A father is not a mother,” my folks always remind me, in trying to help me make peace with all the things I didn’t feel right doing when my kids were younger. I gave up a job opportunity with the UN, rejected many lucrative job offers that involved me travelling.
How could I not put my kids to bed every night? How could I never be there to take them to school in the morning? I couldn’t. I used to get a stomach ache every time I left for the airport and they cried, even though I knew that they stopped crying five minutes after I left.
I did what I did. I don’t know if it was “right” or “wrong,” whether they are better for it or not, whether, as they grow up and go off to college, I will regret the decisions I made and come to grieve for what I don’t have, or be glad that I put them first.
I know many mothers who gave up far more than I did, and their kids are not grateful and not in good shape, and I know many mothers who gave up less and their kids are successful and devoted to them.
Who can say? That decision is for each one of us to make dependent on our own situation. My question is then that can a woman with 5 children put much needed attention both on the home front and to a country of more than 300 million people?

African Catholics, were enriched with another Saint. Josephine Bakhita, born in Darfur (Sudan) in 1869, died in Schio (Italy) 8 February 1947, was canonized by the Pope in the Vatican, calling her Our Universal Sister. This amazingly strong woman made it from an ill-treated slave to a unifying symbol for African Catholics and women.

Bakhita is the first person ever from Sudan to be canonized, or even beatified. She is the first African to be canonized since the early centuries of Christianity, when several North Africans (one of the cores of Christianity before it turned Muslim) were declared Saints. She already has been a symbol of faith and unity for Christians in the war-ravaged country of Sudan for long time, and 8 February is celebrated all over the Christian parts of Sudan.

Her canonization has given great pride to the Christian community of Sudan and to Africa as a whole.

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I could not pass up an article that was written by Jane Madembo this month in the Zimbabwe Times regarding the differences on how the US and Africa view political leaders.
AMERICA is known for its obsession with sex and the sex scandals of the rich; the superstars and the politicians.
This month, the headlines screamed the news of John Edwards’ affair, so much so that for almost two days, the American people were made to forget that there was a Presidential campaign going on. The political pundits said Edwards’ political career had ended.
Across the Atlantic Ocean, in Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe after having unleashed a three month violent runoff and declared himself the winner was just inaugurated to start a new term in office.
Many people in Africa shrug off the infidelities of those in office and say it’s no big deal. Adultery and cheating are as common as a cup of coffee in the morning. Many African men keep mistresses, and since some of the men concerned are the journalists that write the stories, they turn a blind eye. Traditionally, in many parts of Africa, polygamy is legal and having a mistress or two is no big deal. In places like Nigeria, a President or someone in high office will have two or three non-official wives, with children.
When people in power cheat their spouses, one wrong breeds another.
In the case of Edwards, he hired his mistress and paid her big bucks to do a series of campaign videos. He used campaign funds to pay her.
The American public expects those occupying high positions in public office to possess high standards of moral behavior. American presidential candidates go through intense scrutiny by their political opponents as well as the media. No stone is left unturned. Flaws, real or imagined get to be exposed and are sometimes exaggerated.
This great divide illustrates the fact that it’s still a long way to go before Africa catches up with the rest of the world.
In Africa the logic is there are lots of serious issues to be covered, so why waste time and resources on personal affairs? Africa is burning from Zimbabwe, Sudan, Nigeria, and Somalia, the countries are smoldering in poverty, civil war, dictatorial government and other disasters.
It is amusing to see that the Edwards’ affair had managed to infiltrate the African news network. On The Zimbabwe Times website, the headline stood there out of place, like a donkey among a herd of cattle.
Infidelity might seem like a small thing, but history says otherwise. One can make an argument that the inability of a man to control himself, to exercise self-discipline and judgment may affect other areas in his life.
In 1917, during the First World War, Mata Hari was executed by the French for being a German spy. Today, we are far from those days of the female fatale, but women still sometimes find themselves at the center of political power, sometimes for the wrong reasons.
Early this year in Zimbabwe, the government was duped by an illiterate woman, Rotina Mavhunga who somehow convinced cabinet ministers that she could extract processed diesel from a rock in Chinhoyi. For her efforts she was reportedly rewarded with a car and a farm. When it was discovered that she had lied to the politicians, her beauty was cited as the reason why the Ministers had temporarily lost their sanity. If they story had been followed through, perhaps one would have discovered that this woman was perhaps having an affair with one of the Ministers. She went into hiding, and it was later reported that she was under the protection of Tobaiwa Mudede, the Registrar General.
Maybe the mistake Africans make is to believe that their political leaders are just like them, that they have faults like everybody else. But they are not like us. These guys want the job of overseeing a whole country. Their judgment, moral upstanding and ethical standards should be above reproach. Maybe I am dreaming.
Those who aspire to be leaders have to make certain sacrifices.
African presidents or those aspiring to be president need to disclose their financial interests, business, and families, legal and common in law. It is through these other undisclosed interests and activities that money and government resources are spent, and positions are created.
Maybe we need to start asking hard questions like, what makes you think that you can run the country. What values do you subscribe to? Where do you stand on abortion, polygamy and other issues?
I bet you they are many African women who would hesitate to vote for the politician who publicly declares that polygamy or having mistress is fine by him.

A tourist from New Zealand has been arrested on suspicion of engaging in paedophilia activities in The Gambia. An accomplice of the the tourist, was accused of fetching minor girls for an exploitative child pornographic business. Police confiscated a digital camera and a laptop computer containing pornographic pictures of minor Gambian girls. The tourist has allegedly admitted shooting pornographic pictures of Gambian minors in and around Banjul, the capital city.
Gambia has legislated strict laws on sex crimes targeting minors, but majority of tourists reportedly use money to lure underage girls into child sex or pornography.

Both the Tourism Offences Act of 2003 and Section 127 of the constitution outlawed defilement of a girl under 15 years. The suspects are yet to be charged or brought to justice.

The small country whose economy depends a lot on tourism has been attracting many tourists most of who choose The Gambia for different reasons.

The ashaming fact of this world we live in is that our human-kind will always find a way to exploit others - image someone from New Zealand having discovered a small country such as Gambia, to conduct such despicable acts as exploiting young girls!! How ashaming..

With increasing food prices, Ugandan parents are finding it cheaper to take their children to boarding schools than buy the food needed to feed them daily. Akullo has only her youngest daughter at home who goes to a day school; the rest are at a boarding school. During holidays, she sends her entire family to Gulu village in northern Uganda.
“They have to go during holidays. It reduces stress on me [having to] think about their daily food. At least in the village, some food items come from the garden. All I need to do is to buy enough sugar, soap, and paraffin for them to go with,” a mother explains. She is not alone - most families are now resorting to the same tactics.

A mother is happy that she remains at home alone during the day when all her children have gone to school where their fees include lunch. That is her comfort. She can have just a cup of tea for lunch and prepare a reasonable dinner for the whole family. Rising food costs forced her to fire her house helper so that she could reduce the number of mouths to feed.
Food prices have been steadily increasing since 2004, when the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) signed a peace pact with the Sudanese government, prompting trade across the border with Sudan. Uganda currently supplies all the needed food items to Southern Sudan (in addition to manufactured goods) since the desert-like climate leaves the region incapable of producing its own food.
Uganda is now feeding an area more than twice its size, while also supplying food items and non-food items to the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and Kenya.
Besides the demand for food, fuel costs have greatly contributed to the increasing food prices. The 2008 World Trade Indicators Study released in June by the World Bank reveals that Kenya is partly to blame for the increasing prices because of delays at the border. “Goods bound for Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi spend on average five days more.”

The World Bank points to other factors in the food crisis like droughts and increased demand for biofuels. It warns, “There is no relief in sight.” The worst part is that of the 36 countries faced with food crisis, 21 of them are in Africa; Kenya, Ghana and Chad are predicted to undergo severe localized food insecurity.
But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The World Bank has assigned $800 million dollars in assistance to Africa for agricultural development under the New Deal for Global Food Policy to combat malnutrition, one of the Millennium Development Goals. The funding will be used to combat adverse weather conditions like droughts, access technology and facilitate land tilling.