The Women Rights and Development networks all over the world celebrate their 20th birthday of being for their activities in the World. To mark the event, the following networks:
   Asia Pacific Forum one Women Development and (APWLD),
   America Latina committee there Caibe el decorated the Defensa of Derechos los of the Mujer (CLADEM),
   Women Law in Development and Africa in (WiLDAF), met in Bangkok (Thailand) to make an assessment of the path browsed in the action for the promotion and the protection of Human Rights 20 years in the world.

An implementation process of networks was thus initiated in Northern America, in Pacific Asia, in Latin America and in Africa, with the aim of using the law as a tool to strengthen women’s autonomy and enable their participation in development.

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In the implementation of the project: " Good governance and women’s participation in seven West African countries " the national networks WiLDAF/FeDDAFs (Benin, Burkina, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo) elaborated new " Training manual for women’s participation in governance”.

Two (2) types of manuals (in normal version and simplified), have been produced by the national networks while taking into account each country specificity. It is the " training manual for the participation of women in good governance: Planning, programming, budgeting, budget analysis and gender integration process, Human rights of women , Lobbying and negotiation, and building of coalition”

WiLDAF -West Africa in its concern elaborated a manual for the national networks in French and English version on "training manual for women’s participation in governance, advocacy, lobbying, networking, coalition building and negotiation"

These manuals exist in normal version and in simplified version and can be download on our website

WILDAF invites you to discover a document called “The Charter of Kurukan Fuga.” This charter teaches us that traditional societies also were structured and had established rules governing community life. For example, the charter protects the right to life and the preservation of physical integrity.

For African feminists, it is interesting to note that women have always been considered to have rights. But leave no doubt that our modern sensibilities as women’s rights activists are stirred by the fact that violence against women is not categorically excluded on principle. Yet it seems evident that within today’s context, African wisdom would also have found responses similar to those contained in contemporary universally recognized norms for the protection of women. The principles enshrined in the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa are undeniable proof of this.

Therefore, take note of the “Charter of Kurukan Fuga” an oral instrument elaborated by the Mandingos in West Africa. It is reproduced in a version collected in Guinea in March 1998, during a regional workshop for dialogue between traditional and modern orators.

Human Rights Watch has published a report on sexual violence cases in Côte d’Ivoire, since an armed conflict in 2002 between the Ivorian government and northern-based rebel groups.

The report title “My Heart Is Cut” is about the cases of sexual violence in Côte d’Ivoire including individual and gang rape, sexual slavery, forced incest, and egregious sexual assault.

Consult the report of Human Rights Watch “My Heart Is Cut” Sexual Violence by Rebels and Pro-Government Forces in Côte d’Ivoire

Consult the WILDAF WEB site below on the UE3 project “Good Governance and Participation of Women in seven (7) West African countries” at : www.wildaf-ao.org

Click on the Picture at right