By Reenat Sinay

"Show me something that is not transformed by the other half of the human race." -- Gloria Steinem

At first Samira Ibrahim was afraid to tell her father that Egyptian soldiers had detained her in Tahrir Square in Cairo, stripped off her clothes, and watched as she was forcibly subjected to a “virginity test.”

Activists with the April 6 group distribute medicine in a neighborhood of Cairo. Few women have leadership roles in such groups.

Expressing grave concern about the ongoing violence that has impacted Bahrain with forty-four casualties, the BCHR – Bahrain Center for Human Rights is asking for a stop measure in the use of excessive force on Bahraini citizens and activists, especially the excessive use of tear gas as a hazardous chemical.

2011 was a remarkable year. People no longer conceded to sit idly while unjust economic policies and governments denied them prosperous futures. Around the world citizens began to occupy the establishment. At these global protests and uprisings women were common symbols - holding placards, marching in the streets, and speaking truth to power.

How can we, as a nation in times like today, survive let alone talk of progressing if the women in our society are taken as nothing more than a tradable commodity?”

It's perhaps the only market in the world where all the vendors are women. Ima Keithal in Manipur's capital of Imphal (in the north eastern region of India on the border of Myanmar/Burma) is a tourists' paradise where women, sell everything from vegetables to beautiful hand spun shawls. But there's a bitter behind-the-scenes story here.

On viewing war photography, Susan Sontag had a famous aphorism: “No ‘we' should be taken for granted when the subject is looking at other people's pain.” (Regarding the Pain of Others, Picador, 2003)