Women make up less than 10 percent of world leaders. Globally less than one in five members of parliament is a woman. The 30 percent critical mass mark for women's representation in parliament has been reached or exceeded in only 28 countries.

“Despite notable progress, gender inequality persists,” Rousseff, who became Brazil's first female president earlier this year, said at a high-level event held at the United Nations ahead of this week's UN General Assembly.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says Solomon Islands can lead the Pacific by example on human rights issues and ending violence against women.

Boosting women's political participation and decision-making around the world is fundamental for democracy and essential for achieving sustainable development, women leaders taking part in a high-level event at the United Nations declared today.

Walter Astrada doesn't view his four-chapter project, Violence Against Women, as a story about a serious problem for women. Though it is.

“It's not a woman's problem. It's a societal problem” said Mr. Astrada. “If 50 percent of a country can be beaten, raped, killed or tortured, then it's not a free country, it's not a democracy, no matter how developed it is.”

The executive summary of the World Bank's world development report (WDR) on gender trots out one of the organisation's most familiar refrains: "Gender is smart economics." This is both misleading and unfortunate, because the data included in the report is much more nuanced. At times, it even questions the bank's usual argument that economic growth leads to gender equality and gender equality leads to growth.

Just over a decade into the 21st century, women's progress can be seen—and celebrated—across a range of fields. They hold the highest political offices from Thailand to Brazil, Costa Rica to Australia. A woman holds the top spot at the International Monetary Fund; another won the Nobel Prize in economics.

When you became secretary of state, you said your mission was to improve the quality of life for the world's women. Three years later, what's your assessment of the progress made so far? No society can thrive when half its people are left behind. We have seen what a difference it makes when women have access to education and health care, when they are free to start their own businesses or make their own decisions.

Women in Kashmir are the worst sufferers of conflict. Experts say women generally have less tolerance for trauma. Some Kashmiri women have devised their own methods of escape by often transporting themselves into the unreal world of television soap operas and others are not able to forget gruesome tragedies they witnessed. Shams Irfan reports.

In the Pacific, despite women's leadership in peace building, organizing dialogue, providing inputs to defence reviews, mediating between conflicting parties, ending violence against women and defending human rights, women's participation in peacebuilding is still a matter for debate. Women struggle to be heard and are not given sufficient recognition and resources to up-scale their work.