Health

Friday 22 July: Gender Links (GL) in partnership with Amplify Change, today announces the launch of the Voice and Choice Fund targeting Women’s Rights Organisations in Southern Africa focusing on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR). The fund is part of GL’s vision of an inclusive, equal and just society in which women and girls in all their diversities exercise their voice […]

“One should know how to use one’s knowledge to the benefit of the people.”  Neena Ramdenee’s first encounters with Gender Links occurred more than ten years back through Loga Virahsawmy, Gender Links Board Member and Media Consultant and thereafter Anushka Virahsawmy, Country Director of Gender Links Mauritius. She attended presentations and most recently participated in […]

Johannesburg, 9 August: Women’s rights organisations are calling on President Cyril Ramaphosa to provide sex disaggregated data on vaccine roll out in a campaign launched on Women’s Day. A petition signed by 43 Women’s Voice and Leadership partners calls on the president to “provide sex disaggregated data on vaccine roll out and all COVID-19 statistics in line with the national gender […]

Johannesburg, 29 July, The Women’s Voice and Leadership South Africa (WVL-SA) welcomes the progress being made towards rolling out COVID-19 vaccines, but calls for sex disaggregated data to be made available as a matter of urgency. “Sex disaggregation is a central tenant of all data and processes in South Africa,” noted Gender Links special Advisor Colleen Lowe […]

Women call for end to violence, resumption of vaccine roll out Johannesburg, 14 July 2021, The Women’s Voice and Leadership South Africa (WVLSA) project condemns the violence and criminal looting that is ravaging South Africa amid the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. WVLSA calls on President Cyril Ramaphosa to ensure that law and order are restored […]

Johannesburg, 14 July: As many countries in the north start to open up for summer holidays, with lockdown restrictions being eased, South Africa, and most of Africa are going back into harder lockdowns. The reason for these starkly different realities is in large measure due to unequal access to vaccines. With the third wave, driven […]

Johannesburg, 14 July: The COVID-19 pandemic which has been raging across the globe since December 2019 has aggravated gender inequalities. As the majority of care workers, of the poor and those in the informal sector or in precarious work, women bear the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic. If the vaccine roll out is to bring […]

By Kubi Rama, Johannesburg, 18 February: I am writing this piece as part of the GL series “lessons learnt during lockdown.” The deadline is past. I struggled to write this piece. My 12-year old son, Keshav, and I tested positive for COVID-19 on the 7 January 2021. My momentary response was blind panic. I know […]

By Dumiso Gatsha, Gaborone, 4 December: Botswana’s SRHR landscape is characterised by a lack of political will, policy frameworks and programming that safeguard and strengthen bodily autonomy and integrity for all its citizens. Whilst equitable comprehensive sex education, safe abortion and gender affirmative healthcare are notable shortcomings; progress has been made in raising the age […]

Sifisosami Dube 25 November : Lungelo woke up at four am in order to start the long walk to the nearest district hospital.  She  wanted to collect her monthly family planning pills as she was left with only two days’ supply. Upon arriving at the hospital, the process to collect the pills was slow as […]