Traditional chiefs in Togo, in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the government, have agreed to support efforts against violence on girls through a 'national league' -in commemoration of the International Day of the Child that was celebrated on 20 November.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has drawn up a five-year programme to boost girls' education in six Nigerian states starting next year, Maman Sidikou, head of UNICEF's education unit in the country said.

Images of poverty and squalor are everywhere at Porta farm, a fast-expanding squatter camp 18 km southwest of Zimbabwe's capital, Harare.

The Namibian Red Cross Society (NRCS) is withdrawing its services from the Osire refugee camp. "We will be withdrawing as of 31 December 2001," Geniene Veii, deputy secretary-general of the NRCS told IRIN on Tuesday. "Part of the reason that we are doing this is because of a lack of donor funding and partly because donors have been slow in making payments."

Zambia has faced hard questions by the UN's Committee Against Torture over the lack of legal protection of suspects against maltreatment by the police, a statement by the Office for the High Commissioner of Human Rights said.