Kenya and gay rights - what is at stake

The Kenyan Penal code current criminalises same sex relations sections 162 and 165 . A penalty can be 14 years in prison.

the courts recently postponed a reconsideration of the code until May

This interesting article from the Conversation sets such laws in a wider colonial context

for further information try these resources.

For background context see the UK Home Office background document (published in 2017)

in 2013 the Pew Global attitudes survey found an intolerance to gay men women in Kenya with 90% of those surveyed stating society should not accept homosexuality.


The National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (NGLHRC) is an independent human rights institution working for legal and policy reforms. Its website has information on its legal work including case decisions and campaigns

Gay and Lesbian coalition of Kenya also has campaign materials on its website

as does PEMA Kenya

it is leading a social media campaign #Repeal162.

Human Rights Watch has reports of homophobic attacks in Kenya

for information on other countries where it is currently illegal to be gay see the ILGA mapping

Is fashion sustainable? - a few resources for London Fashion week

This week is London Fashion week

this week the Environmental Audit Committee published a report on Clothing Consumption and sustainability. One key fact it highlighted was that  "300,000 tonnes of textile waste ends up in household black bins every year, sent to landfill or incinerators. Less than 1% of material used to produce clothing is recycled into new clothing at the end of its life."

For further information on sustainable fashion try these resources.
The Conversation blog has academic articles discussing sustainable fashion#

The Pulse of the Fashion Industry report is published by the Global Fashion Agenda, in collaboration with The Boston Consulting Group. assessments since 2017 on the fashion  industry’s environmental and social performance.

Sustainable Apparel Coalition is an industry led initiative. It has developed  the Higg Index, a standardized supply chain measurement tool set

The Sustainable Fashion Blueprint 2018, in University of Cambridge MBA students Diane Albouy and Olabisi Adesida. The Report draws on existing resources, as well as exclusive content collected through the Mamoq Fashion Survey, a consumer research survey designed to assess consumer knowledge of sustainable fashion.

WRAP has been working on an action plan . It has guides for extending clothing life and blueprints for the industry

these include clothing design.

Nigerian Elections - what is going on?

Nigerian elections were scheduled in February. They have already been postponed. What will happen? These resources provide insight into the situation.

Independent Electoral Commission Nigeria has official announcements and regulations on the conduct of elections. they have an official statement on YouTube on why they postponed the elections

Election observers

These organisations have statements and assessments of the democratic structure.

EU

African Union

NDI

ECOWAS

Commonwealth

Think tank analysis

USIP

Centre for Democracy and Development has set up an election monitoring centre. They have statements and assessments of the campaigns.

The Conversation blog

International Crisis Group

Chatham House

Human Rights Watch

IISS blog

Council on Foreign Relations Blog

African Liberty

News
All Africa.com

BBC focus Africa has podcasts on the campaigns

Women in Science Day - some free academic resources

11th February is designated International Women in Science Day. The official website has the UN resolution plus related UN documents

It is necessary as
according to UNESCO data (2014- 2016), only around 30 per cent of all female students select STEM-related fields in higher education. Globally, female students’ enrolment is particularly low in ICT (3 per cent), natural science, mathematics and statistics (5 per cent) and in engineering, manufacturing and construction (8 per cent).

This fact sheet presents the latest UIS data on research and experimental development (R&D) available as of June 2018 The vast majority of data are presented in headcounts (HC), which are the total number of persons employed in R&D. This includes staff employed both full -time and part time. The regional averages for the share of female researchers (based on available data only) for 2015 are:28.8% for World with smaller percentages form other regions.

 for the UK: the Wise campaign has workforce and education statistics.

The Women's Engineering Society  is a campaign group whose website has statistics and programme information for the UK. Theybstate that in 2017 11% of the workforce was female

PWC has some useful surveys and dat on women in Tech

Stemettes is a leading campaign group which has programmes to encourage girls to learn and take careers in Stem subjects

Finally great videos from BBC ideas - where did all the women in tech go? which discusses the history of women in technology. and the film from Dame Stephanie Shirley on why she had to change her name to Steve

Are insects going extinct? Get some scientific facts

 This week the media reported a possible mass extinction of insects worldwide

the full data  can be obtained from this article 

Worldwide decline of the entomofauna: A review of its drivers
Francisco Sánchez-Bayoa Kris A.G.Wyckhuys
published in Biological Conservation

this found that Over 40% of insect species are threatened with extinction the main driver is agricultural development

this echoes an earlier PLOs study which found in 2017  that

More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

ICUN Red list has a listing of endnagered insect species.

The UN environmental Data explorer has open acess data sets on threatened and critically endanger insect species form 1006 onwards allowing comparison over time.

For the UK the  biodiversity Index - includes a mapping of the decline of butterfly species since the mid 1970s

for more background information on insect species and their importnace to the enviornment try:

the NBN atlas 

this is run by charity and has species files, maps and links to datasets from conservation, nature and government bodies. For instance see this file on Waterstick insects

the Database of Insects and their food plants also gives insight into plant insect interactions in the UK

Unpaid care what is it worth? Get the academic facts

According to new research from Carers UK this week. Each day 600 people have to quit work to care

for a relative. Their policy library has comment on UK government policy for carers including benefits and

This research briefing from the UK parliament provides an excellent introduction to the data and UK government policy. It includes the statistics that in 2018 there were around 6.5 million carers contributing 65 million in unpaid care. Women make up 58% of carers.

For datasets on unpaid care. Try the Office for National Statistics which has some information in trends and characteristics of carers

In 2017 they published this useful article on the costs of unpaid care which has mappings on its amounts with the amount spent by the government on social care. In 2016 they also used time use data to show women spent 60% extra time on unpaid work than men. This include housework as well as unpaid care

For a wider international picture try OECD data

This has gender breakdowns for over 15 nations on time spent in unpaid work. this includes housework as well as care. In 2015 the gap between men and women in terms of this was largest for Mexico. The site also has this paper which discusses gender imbalances in unpaid care

For larger recent data sets OECD.stat https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?queryid=54757 has spreadsheets on paid and unpaid labour for oecd nations. Subscribers to OECDilibrary can download


finally do check the ilo website for information on care. This report found that womn in asia pacific do 4 times as much unpaid care work as men