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Les droits d’auteur et les brevets limitent–ils l’accès aux connaissances et au traitement du VIH/SIDA en Afrique?
Le dernier rapport de 2008 de l’ONUSIDA confirme que l’Afrique subsaharienne reste la région du monde la plus sérieusement affectée par le VIH, et représente les deux tiers (671%) du total des personnes vivant avec le VIH et les trois quarts (75%) des décès dus au SIDA en 2007. Environ 1,9 million de personnes ont été nouvellement infectées par le VIH en Afrique subsaharienne.

TIC : Femmes, logiciels libres, copyrights, …les oubliés du législateur et du décideur mauritaniens
Les logiciels libres sont une vraie solution aux problèmes de fracture numérique qu’engendre le sous -développement. En effet, il est désormais indéniable qu’ils ont, avec l’implication des femmes et leur prise en compte comme actrices incontournables, une part importante à jouer dans la création d’un environnement favorable à un développement équitable et durable.

Copyright? Copyleft? Why does it matter? An interview with Heather Ford
GenderIt writer Mavic Cabrera-Balleza interviewed Heather Ford, Founder of the African Commons Project, a South African NGO with the goal of mobilizing communities through active participation in collaborative technology. Ford has worked in the fields of internet policy, law and management in South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. She sheds light on some of these issues.

ICTs: Women, free software, copyrights,… forgotten by Mauritanian legislators and decision-makers
Fatma Mint Elkory Oumrane takes a look at the progress Mauritania is making in encouraging open access to materials, its copyright regime and how these impact on women. She examines the role of women as ICT graduates and looks at how the government is helping overcome the various digital divides - and the large amount of work that remains to be done.

Access to Knowledge in Emergency situations: Looking at the situation in Jordan and in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Sonia Randhawa interviewed with Lulu Mitshabu and Daoud Kuttab. Lulu Mitshabu is the Africa Programs Coordinator at Caritas Australia. A Congolese woman, she travels through Africa regularly and is responsible for their Congolese programme. Daoud Kuttab is president of AMARC Middle East and North Africa, and responsible for setting up Jordan's first community radio. He has recently been working with women to help establish the region's first women's community radio station – which has just had its application for a license rejected by the Jordanian authorities.

University women struggle for knowledge access in Africa
The future female leaders of Africa are up against major barriers to knowledge access, which could mean lost opportunities in university learning and teaching the state-of-the-art research most necessary for academic success. Online academic journals, and university textbooks are a few of the important resources that are part of this access to knowledge, which is pertinent particularly at the university level. Not only do students need to pass their courses, they are also encouraged to develop innovative and novel ideas informed and possibly inspired by past research work. Kathleen Diga questions whether such access of learning materials to all students and teachers at universities in Africa are fair to both women and men.

Challenges of communal copyright: Traditional and indigenous knowledge
Copyright and patents legislation has spread rapidly over the past century. This has a particular impact on indigenous women and the holders of traditional knowledge, as copyright ignores the possibility that knowledge can be held communally and has definitions of knowledge that exclude information held in a spiritual context. In this article, GenderIT writer Sonia Randhawa examines how women's lives in traditional and indigenous societies have been affected by the spread of copyright.

Do copyrights and patents limit access to HIV/AIDS knowledge and treatment in Africa?
The UNAIDS 2008 report confirms that Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be the region most seriously affected by AIDS in the world. As part of the response to this pandemic, access to information and knowledge on HIV/AIDS is vital, as disease prevention depends heavily on information. In a world where there is a price to pay for access to knowledge, to what extent do patents and copyrights limit access to information and HIV/AIDS treatment for African populations, particularly the women and youths who are the most affected? This article explores the connection between access to information, intellectual property rights and HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Finding a difficult balance: Human rights, law enforcement and cyber violence against women
GenderIT writer Mavic Cabrera-Balleza probed on new analytical frameworks of violence against women taking into account cyber violence and the challenges and dilemmas women activists confront as they struggle to address this relatively new dimension of gender injustice. She spoke with two women activists who are at the forefront of advocacy on violence against women at the national and international levels - Lesley Ann Foster, founder and Executive Director of Masimanye Women’s Support Network in South Africa and Charlotte Bunch, founder and Executive Director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA.

Cybercrime laws are not enough, there is also a need for education
The different forms of online violence against women should be covered by criminal legislation to provide adequate protection and redress. However, laws are not enough. There is also a need for education, prevention, the development of defence mechanisms and a legal system that is capable of addressing these issues without subjecting the victims to further victimisation. Carlos Gregorio, a researcher at the Research Institute for Justice (Instituto de Investigación para la Justicia) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, shares his views on a number of issues related to cybercrime.

Dealing with fraud and internet "love": women and cybercrime in Burkina Faso
Fraud, data piracy, seeking partners on the internet: women in Burkina Faso are as much victims as perpetrators. From Ouagadougou to Banfora via Bobo-Dioulasso, and from Ouahigouya to Dori, all towns with an internet connection are affected by this phenomenon. However, the fight against this crime is in the tentative stages, if not altogether non-existent. Legislation is still under development.

Unequal protection, cyber crime and the internet in India
In assessing cyber crime legislation, policy makers and gender and development advocates must carefully consider the implications for privacy and information security. On the one hand, ICT have created opportunities to combat inequality through movements and communities against issues that were once deemed 'private', such as domestic violence and sex trafficking. On the other hand, ICT exacerbate existing structures of inequality by enabling cyber criminals to access and misuse private information to target vulnerable groups. As ICT blur the lines between personal and public, the nature of the internet and cyber crime - including how they affect human rights and social justice - must be questioned. Weiting Xu casts a gendered lens on cybercrime laws in India.

Money for tech? Tech and money? Facilitating women’s engagement in the financing discourse through the use of ICT
Ireen Dubel, the manager of the gender, women and development programme of Hivos is an active participant in discussions on financing for women and development work. Hivos, Ireen’s organisation, is one of the few donor agencies that have consistently supported ICT for development projects.

In this interview conducted by GenderIT.org writer, Mavic Cabrera-Balleza, Ireen shares her thoughts on the links between ICT and financing for women’s empowerment and gender equality.

Read more on the 52nd Commission on the Status of Women panel report, "Why the Purse Feels Empty: Financing for women's equitable access to information and communication technologies":
What are the current financing trends and challenges in the ICTD sector?
LISTEN: Communication Rights for Women - Why the Purse feels empty? Role of ICTs in securing funds for women's groups [part 4]
LISTEN: Communication Rights for Women - Why the Purse feels empty? Donor's perspective on financing gender and ICT initiatives [part 3]
LISTEN: Communication Rights for Women - Why the Purse feels empty? Effective Financing Mechanisms to Progress Gender Equality [part 2]
LISTEN:Communication Rights for Women - Why the Purse feels empty? Financing Trends and Challenges in the ICT for Development [part 1]

Of empty purses and tattered pockets: Stitching funding back into gender and ICT
The panel on women's communication rights "Why the purse feels empty: Financing for women's equitable access to information and communication technologies" during the recent 52nd CSW brought together donor, development and civil society perspectives on the issue. Erika Smith presents an overview of the discussion around the challenges, importance and opportunities of financing ICT for women's communication rights in this article.

Read the full report on 52nd Commission on the Status of Women panel, "Why the Purse Feels Empty: Financing for women's equitable access to information and communication technologies":
What are the current financing trends and challenges in the ICTD sector?
LISTEN: Communication Rights for Women - Why the Purse feels empty? Role of ICTs in securing funds for women's groups [part 4]
LISTEN: Communication Rights for Women - Why the Purse feels empty? Donor's perspective on financing gender and ICT initiatives [part 3]
LISTEN: Communication Rights for Women - Why the Purse feels empty? Effective Financing Mechanisms to Progress Gender Equality [part 2]
LISTEN:Communication Rights for Women - Why the Purse feels empty? Financing Trends and Challenges in the ICT for Development [part 1]

“We are in the process of constructing a new political field, and this is just the beginning”
Magaly Pazello is a Brazilian researcher and consultant in gender and information and communication technologies (ICT) and a member of the g2g group. She was the only woman from Brazil to participate in the entire World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process. In an exclusive interview with GenderIT.org, Magaly highlights the debates about the reduction in international funding for Latin America, and observes that the search for new partnerships and creation of innovative projects are fundamental steps for moving forwards in constructing this new political field. But also, that “this is just the beginning” of the process.

Read more on the 52nd Commission on the Status of Women panel report, "Why the Purse Feels Empty: Financing for women's equitable access to information and communication technologies":
What are the current financing trends and challenges in the ICTD sector?
LISTEN: Communication Rights for Women - Why the Purse feels empty? Role of ICTs in securing funds for women's groups [part 4]
LISTEN: Communication Rights for Women - Why the Purse feels empty? Donor's perspective on financing gender and ICT initiatives [part 3]
LISTEN: Communication Rights for Women - Why the Purse feels empty? Effective Financing Mechanisms to Progress Gender Equality [part 2]
LISTEN:Communication Rights for Women - Why the Purse feels empty? Financing Trends and Challenges in the ICT for Development [part 1]