Women, Peace, and Security News archive: South Asia
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2007 South Asia Archive

Bangladesh: Combating impunity of another kind
August 2, 2007 - (thedailystar) In Bangladesh, women make up roughly 49% of the population. They bear a disproportionately greater share of the country's poverty and are discriminated against in both the public and private sphere. Class based, repressive and community mind-sets, certain social behaviours, unchallenged economic dependence and financial insecurity, and high illiteracy keep the majority of the women out of an equal position within the family, society, and the overall development process of the country.

India: India's 'pink' vigilante women
November 26, 2007 - (BBC News) They wear pink saris and go after corrupt officials and boorish men with sticks and axes. The several hundred vigilante women of India's northern Uttar Pradesh state's Banda area proudly call themselves the "gulabi gang" (pink gang), striking fear in the hearts of wrongdoers and earning the grudging respect of officials.

India: Indian Tribunal Pushes for Sexual-Violence Inquiry
November 5, 2007 - (Womens Enews) The testimony of 25-year-old Gouri Pradhan, a resident of the village Gokul Nagar, is typical in its description of the type of sexual assault that women say they suffered at the hands of police during violent land disputes that began last March in Nandigram, a rural area in the eastern state of West Bengal.

Kashmir: Conflict Leaves Women Stranded in Divided Kashmir
October 18, 2007 – (Womens Enews) In Indian-controlled Kashmir women with husbands on the other side of the militarized zone have spent years and decades struggling for reunion. In the meantime they endure official suspicion and harassment and struggle for their daily survival.

India: Women activists launch new political party
October 16, 2007 – (India Enews) Fed up with the neglect of gender issues by mainstream political parties, women activists from across the country are getting together to form a party that will focus on women's empowerment.

Nepal: Traffickers exploit increased mobility of underage girls
August 22, 2007 - (IRIN) Despite measures by the government and NGOs to protect girls from being trafficked, the situation has barely changed, according to activists, who said hundreds of Nepalese girls still get trafficked to India every year where they are forced into prostitution.

Pakistan: Looking to Women to Preserve the Peace
August 14, 2007 - (Inter Press Service Agency) ''The idea is to ensure that a May 12 never happens again,'' said Nasir Aslam Zahid, former judge and one of the members of the Women's Commission for Peace (WCP) formed in time for Tuesday when Pakistan celebrates its 60th year of independence.

National Action Plan for women
August 6, 2007 - (Colombo) Arrangements have been made to formulate a National Plan of Action for Women. A National Plan of Action for Children will be formulated shortly. Consulting and obtaining proposals should be done before formulating the final draft, Child Development and Women’s Empowerment Minister Sumedha G. Jayasena said.

Kashmir: Do women have say in deciding Kashmir's future?
July 29, 2007 - (India eNews) Women have been some of the worst sufferers of the 17-year-old violence in Jammu and Kashmir, but they seem to have no space on the dialogue table as efforts are made for a final, peaceful solution to the conflict.

India: Pratibha Patil named India's first female president
July 20, 2007 (International Herald Tribune) India got its first female president Saturday in a victory hailed as a special moment in a country where discrimination against women is often deep-rooted and widespread.

Sri Lanka: Bandaranaike Wants To See Women In Peacekeeping Role
June 26, 2007 - (NewsPostIndia) Former Sri Lankan president Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga called for women to play an active role in crisis management and peacekeeping around the globe.

Pakistan: HR activist gets Huston Award-2007 in US
June 21, 2007 – (Daily Times) Pakistani women rights activist and documentary filmmaker Samar Minallah was awarded the Perdita Huston Human Rights Award for 2007 in Washington DC at The Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics. The Institute of International Economics gave her the award on June 6, 2007.

Nepal: Impoverished rural women prone to exploitation in towns
June 12 2007 - (IRIN) Maili Buda, 35, is having an increasingly difficult life since her husband was killed in Khalanga village, northwest of the capital, during a clash between the Maoist rebels and government security forces nearly six years ago.

India: FEATURE-India's underage brides wedded to tradition
May 16, 2007 - (Reuters) The festival of 'Akha Teej' sees life-long bonds forged -- and many childhoods tragically cut short. Social activists say many of those getting married are children, sometimes as young as 10, forced into wedlock yet physiologically and emotionally unprepared to be a wife.

Nepal: Gov’t, media ignoring plight of displaced women
May 2, 2007 – (IRIN) Chandrakala Adhikari was barely 22 years old when she was widowed three years ago after her husband, a teacher, was killed by Maoist rebels in Larkhe, a remote village in Nepal’s northwestern Gorkha district.

Nepal: Maoists Should End Anti-Gay Violence
April 16, 2007 – (Human Rights Watch) The Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist, which is now part of the Nepalese government, must stop anti-gay violence by its cadres and renounce anti-gay rhetoric, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to lawmakers today.

Nepal: Nepal Ceasefire Allows Mobile Team to Care for Women's Health
April 5, 2007 — (unfpa) “May you live 100 years! You have given me my life back,” a beaming Guma Badela told the doctor and nurse examining her. She had come to a mobile health clinic for a post-surgery check-up and to express thanks.

Kashmir: Conflict Rape Victims: Abandoned And Forgotten
31 March, 2007 - (Countercurrents.org) Deserted by their families, abandoned by society, forgotten by both separatists and mainstream political parties, rape victims during the last seventeen years of militancy in Jammu and Kashmir live an appalling life. Reports of Kashmir based social organizations put the figure of women raped, molested and abused above one thousand but data compiled by international agencies like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International put the figure around 900.

Nepal: Girls not spared by violence in Terai
March 29, 2007 - (IRIN) RAUTAHAT In the remote Pathaya village of Rautahat district, some 200km southeast of the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, local women are coming to terms with seeing three young girls killed in recent clashes between supporters of the ethnic Madhesi party and former Maoist rebels.

Sri Lanka: Women in Sri Lanka win the numbers battle, but war rages
March 21, 2007 – (lankabusinessonline) In Sri Lanka, women already outnumber men at 52 women for every 48 men and activists are warning that the proportion would increase if the war continues.

Pakistan: Nearly 600 women killed in Pakistan 'honour killings' in 2006
February 8, 2007 - (Irish Examiner) At least 565 women and girls in Pakistan died in so-called honour killings in 2006, the country's main rights organisation said today, nearly double the number it recorded the year before.

Pakistan: Pakistani rape victim says attacks increasing
February 1, 2007 - (Reuters) A Pakistani rape victim who became a prominent women's rights campaigner said on Thursday violence against women was increasing in Pakistan because authorities were not serious about punishing the perpetrators. Mukhtaran Mai, who was gang-raped in 2002 on the orders of a traditional village council, said she was appalled by a similar attack on a 16-year-old girl at the weekend.

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