Fati Walet Mohamed Issa, a young documentary filmmaker from Mali’s volatile north, says her goal is to shine a light on the plight of women in the conflict-torn Sahel state. “Women are often either taken out of school to get married, or they are not allowed to go to school,” the 24-year-old, wearing a tunic and a veil, tells AFP. ALSO READ: ‘The Queen’s’ Connie Ferguson confirms ‘Kings of Joburg’ season two MALI’S FATI ISSA WANTS TO TALK ABOUT WOMEN IN HER WORKMali is a conservative Muslim-majority nation of 21 million people, where swathes of the country are in the hands of jihadists, and pre…
The daughter of Hollywood actor Will Smith is under-fire for portraying Amazighs, the indigenous people of North Africa, as “dangerous thieves” in her upcoming novel Black Shield Maiden. Willow Smith, a 21-year-old singer, songwriter and activist, is set to launch on October 4 a fantasy novel about two women navigating their fate in a strange world of “savage shield maidens, tyrannical rulers, and mysterious gods”. The book’s publishing house, Penguin UK, published earlier this month an exclusive excerpt from Smith’s story, which includes a paragraph titled ‘Amazigh’. “The Amazigh are dangerou…