Minister of the Interior Neoclis Sylikiotis has insisted that progress has been made in recent years to tackle the problem of human trafficking in Cyprus but more needs to be done.

The Minister was addressing a one-day conference which opened in Nicosia entitled "the Changing Facets of Trafficking in Human Beings: Challenges and Policy Developments".

As the world rallies behind the Libyan population, it is hard to understand why the Ivory Coast is just a footnote in international news and on the diplomatic agenda. In recent weeks in this critical West African country, hundreds of civilians have been killed, often in horrendous ways. New bodies turn up on the streets and in the morgues nearly every day with bullet wounds, slashed throats, and charred skin from being burned alive.

The Gender Equity Bill in Liberia that had sought to allocate 30% of women's representation in the government was defeated in the House. Please allow this piece as my response.

"Study after study has shown that there is no effective development strategy in which women do not play a central role," former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Women remain second-class citizens in too many countries, deprived of basic rights or legitimate opportunities, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, calling on universities to help in the fight to overcome discrimination and change perceptions about what women can and should do.

Young children and women are vulnerable to sexual exploitation because of gaps in the law and the lack of its implementation as well as absence of a national policy, parliament's Human Rights Committee yesterday said.

Last year, Serbia passed a bill regulating gender equality, but the traditional Balkan notion that women belong at home is slow to change.

Still, the vice-president of the Gender Equality Council and state secretary in the Labour and Social Policy Ministry, Snezana Lakicevic, says women have far more opportunities in Serbian politics than was the case even a few years ago.

The United States Ambassador to Liberia has challenged Liberian women to stand-up and say no to the on-going political crisis in Ivory Coast. She said women have the voice and must stand up as mothers to say no to their children participating in the ongoing fighting in the wake of reports that Liberians are involved in the fighting in that country.

During the recent United Nations Sierra Leone Country Specific Configuration review meetings at the UN, Sierra Leone's Civil Society participated and made a deep and stirring impression.

UN Women Executive Director Ms. Michelle Bachelet has raised concerns over insecurity facing Somali women and girls in refugee camps in Kenya.

“Women are raped in their homes, in the bushes and many times on the roads,” said Ms. Bachelet. “New arrivals don't have shelters to sleep in and end up sleeping in the open outside the camps, exposing themselves to security risks.”

The United Nations envoy on sexual violence in conflict today underlined the role of the African leadership in combating sexual violence in the continent, and welcomed the commitment expressed by the African Union (AU) to ensure that the problem is eradicated.