Africa | Zambia | Culture

Women pay the price for Zambia mining expansion

The women sat quietly in a village church in northwest Zambia, the sun slanting down on their colorful Sunday outfits as they told how life had changed since their chief sold a tract of land to a foreign firm for a new copper mine, displacing hundreds of families. "We had a vast land and we could do anything," Seke Mwansakombe, one of the displaced women, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "Here we are confined to 40 by 40 meter plots and our movements have been restricted because certain areas are now no-go areas." Kalumbila Minerals Ltd, a subsidiary of Canada-based First Quantum

Africa | Zambia | Activism

Zambia: Street Harassment – Women Fight Back

Source: allAfrica

Driving to work I heard a call-in radio show about a woman who had been stripped naked in the streets because her dress was seen as indecent. Not one of the perpetrators of the stripping had been arrested, even though witnesses had taken photos and videos and posted them all over social media. Callers expressed the opinion that the woman had gotten what she deserved. "Women have gone too far with their dressing; a woman's thighs are only for her husband to see," one caller said. So upset by this and similar comments, for the rest of the day all I did was research ways I could do somet

Africa | Zambia | Activism

Gonzaga group brings hygiene kits to women in Zambia

Source: The Seattle Times

A group of students and faculty from Gonzaga University is heading to Zambia on Monday, carrying unlikely tools for social change: feminine-hygiene kits that will make it possible for young girls and women to stay in school. This is the second year the Gonzaga-in-Zambezi program for organizational leadership has added the cloth kits to the supplies and services that students share with villagers in the sub-Saharan African nation, said Josh Armstrong, director of the school’s comprehensive leadership program. But it’s already one of the more popular and meaningful ways to have direct