women's rights Archives

Post Tagged with: "women’s rights"

Women’s Heavy Burden: CARE’s Crisis Work in the Congo

May 7, 2013

In the Democratic Republic of Congo it is more dangerous to be a woman than it is a solider. Since 1996 a series of wars, rebellions, and flareups in the East have caused over 2.6 million people to be displaced from their homes. In the ensuing crises, it is women and girls who have suffered the most, most especially as survivors of sexual or gender-based violence. This video, a reminder of the conflict that is seemingly forgotten by the international community, tells the story of these women. In the DRC, CARE works to bring about lasting transformation in the lives of women through psycho-social support and economic empowerment programs. However, the organization also works with men in order to dismantle unhealthy cultural biases toward women while building communities in which girls can grow up with the same rights and protection men experience. CARE is also working to provide emergency food[…]

No Longer Silent

April 1, 2011

You would think as much as I’ve photographed the lives of women that they were getting preferential treatment here in Africa. Sadly in most cases it is the opposite. Though women are increasingly gaining more roles in government, Liberia’s current president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, remains the first and only elected female head of state on the continent. Although countries like Uganda and Rwanda do have significant female representation in parliament (in both it’s mandated by law), this inclusion hardly ever trickles down to the village level. Last year there was quite an uproar in Sierra Leone when a woman made a bid to become chief. Places where women are marginalized are often places where crimes against them go ignored and unpunished. As part of my most recent assignment with AcionAid, I visited the Women Won’t Wait Centre in Mubende, western Uganda. The center is one of four such locations in[…]