Women’s rights: Widows’ Uprising

In Congo, widows have to endure a double punishment: losing their husband and injustice. In Pointe-Noire, a group of women is fighting for their rights.
In Congo, widows have to endure a double punishment: losing their husband and injustice. In Pointe-Noire, a group of women is fighting for their rights.
Sadibou Marong is a Senegalese journalist who holds the position of West Africa Director of Reporters Without Borders (RWB), based in Dakar. The RSF organisation in Dakar works to defend and train journalists and strengthen the network of correspondents and local partners, mainly in Senegal, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Benin and Togo. During this interview, Sadibou Marong talks about, among other things, the injustices suffered by journalists in Africa, the obstacles facing press freedom and the evolution of journalism on the continent.
Born in the north of Cameroon, Djaïli Amadou Amal is a writer, activist and feminist who has not hesitated to escape two marriages, one of which was forced to make a living from her passion for writing and defending women's rights. Thanks to her novel "Les Impatientes", she was the first African finalist for the 2020 Goncourt des lycéens prize in France. In this novel, she drew her inspiration from the condition of women who are asked on their wedding day to be patient. This novel is now crowned worldwide and is even on the final year curriculum of Cameroonian high schools. In this interview she tells us about her association and conception of feminism for women's progress in Africa.
The Vegetable Garden Club was created almost five years ago and has more than 800 children and teenagers participating in the project. They are between 4 and 17 years old and come from schools in Douala and Yaoundé in Cameroon. The main objective of this club is to allow children and parents to reconnect with nature and learn about agriculture and animal breeding. In this country, agriculture contributes to about 17% of the GDP.
Since March 2022, violent confrontations between the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) and the March 23 rebel movement (M23) have displaced several thousand people in the eastern DRC province of North Kivu. According to the UN, about 510,000 people have been displaced in the territories of Rutshuru and Nyiragongo. The Goma actif Collective, formed by young activists and citizens, provides food aid to the most vulnerable women and children.
Éric Pounewatchy is an actor, director and screenwriter, born in Bangui, Central African Republic. He arrived in France at the age of 1 in the 1970s and spent his childhood in Sarcelles, a suburb of Paris. In this interview, he tells us about his achievements and contributions, among which the documentary "Sometimes destroy, often build, always serve", which talks about reconciliation between the army and the population in the Central African Republic in 2014 following a politico-military crisis.
In Nigeria, a young woman who survived sexual abuse, found the strength to teach other victims how to overcome this ordeal. Her foundation Life after Abuse strives for a better social awareness of sexual violence and the post-traumatic convalescence of victims. Halima Layeni focused her attention on marginalized adolescents to whom she offered listening sessions and therapy. She then realized that young men who were victims of abuse needed more adapted therapy. Our correspondent in Abuja, Ugo Uyanna followed her to understand her approach.
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