News

The UN Commission on Status of Women, Session 57, debated inclusion of child marriage in agreement on eliminating violence against women, as Malawi seeks to raise its legal age of marriage from 15 to 18. More than 140 million girls will become child brides by 2020 if current rates of early marriage continue, according to the UN.

Some horrific events over the past few months, including the shooting of a Pakistani schoolgirl and the rape and murder of a young Indian physiotherapy student, should have been an alert for the world to unite in preventing violence against women.

In a ground-breaking move, South African prosecutors will investigate President Robert Mugabe’s political party for crimes against humanity for an alleged campaign of mass rapes in Zimbabwe’s last election.

The decision, following a request by Canadian activist Stephen Lewis and others, marks the first time an African government has used domestic laws to investigate another African country under the emerging doctrine of “universal jurisdiction.”

When armed Islamist fighters arrived in the northeastern Malian village of Haribomo near Timbuktu, one of the first things they did was sip sweet tea with the local imam. They then told him how they expected the village women to behave.

“The Islamists met with the imam and they said, ‘Let us tell you our rules’,” said Adane Djiffiey Djallo, a coordinator at Aide et Developpement au Mali, a Timbuktu-based non-governmental organisation. “They said women would no longer be allowed to go to work, to the market or wash in the river.”But the imam turned to the Islamists and said: “‘Let me tell you my rules’”.