By Aili Mari Tripp
When I went to Uganda in 1992, I was interested in understanding why the country had so many women in top government positions and why it had the highest rates of representation of women in parliament in Africa at the time. During my research, I realized that a key reason was war. Uganda had just emerged from years of major conflict. Relations between women and men had begun to change, and as a result, women started to mobilize for their rights.
Senators return to work on Monday, June 27th, to listen to the last defense witnesses in the impeachment trial of suspended Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. Analysts believe that the next two weeks may be decisive for the suspended leader, with the defense resting its case and Rousseff herself testifying before the Senate sometime next week.
By Ehis Ayere
When the Angolan President Dos Santos by a presidential decree appointed Isabel Dos Santos, his daughter and famous billionaire investor as the Head of Sonangol, the Angolan state oil giant, in June, a number of critics were quick to underline the president’s action as unconstitutional and an effort to cement his dynastic grip on power in the oil producing country.
Biodun Christine Olujimi, Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Deputy Minority Whip of the Senate was born to a Photographer father and Seamstress mother on the 25th of December, 1958. She hails from Omuo-Ekiti in Ekiti East Local Government Area of Ekiti State Nigeria.
10 years ago today, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was sworn in as Liberia’s new president, becoming Africa’s first female elected head of state. The election of Africa’s “Iron Lady” marked the beginning of the nation’s success story, in the wake of fourteen years of brutal civil conflict. (2006) Sirleaf was awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with two other African women recognized “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.”
