OVER the past decades, government has worked to promote Filipino women in every field of life. Various activities have been undertaken to implement recommendations and decisions made during various local and international conferences on women and development in general.

Women and girls returning to northern Uganda from forced conscription into the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) struggle to resettle in their home communities because of stigma and a severe shortage of reintegration facilities tailored to their needs, say analysts and returnees.

Chechnya's strongman Ramzan Kadyrov on Tuesday shrugged off rights groups' accusations that he is imposing strict Islamic rules on women in the Russian republic.

Kadyrov said Tuesday that Chechen women wear headscarves because they are Muslim and also as part of local traditions.

The round table, held at Centre's premises on March 1, was opened by welcome speech of Tanja Miscevic, State Secretary in the Ministry of Defence. During her speech, she discussed the process of developing a National Action Plan (NAP) for the implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 in Serbia and its significance for achieving equality of men and women in Serbia.

Quotas are needed to ensure equal representation of women in the private and public sectors, agreed most participants in a meeting held by the EP Women's Rights and Gender Equality Committee with national parliaments' representatives on Thursday, ahead of the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day on 8 March.

Azza Kamel, a women's rights advocate in Egypt, said the popular uprisings in her country and its neighbors are creating new opportunities for women.

“There was no difference between women who were veiled or not veiled,” Kamel said at the United Nations in New York, referring to the protests that ended Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule last month. “The revolution created a land as free for women as for men.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday launched the "100 Women Initiative: Empowering Women and Girls through International Exchanges" on the eve of the100th anniversary of International Women's Day, which marks the economic, political and social achievements of women.

One hundred women from 92 countries gathered at the State Department to begin a three-week professional exchange program in the United States.

A United Nations report unveiled today highlights the deprivations endured by thousands of victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), including poverty, denial of justice and lack of access to medical and psychological treatment, and recommends the establishment of a reparations fund.

Eleven soldiers found culpable in the rape of more than 50 women in the Congolese town of Fizi Centre in January, have begun serving lengthy sentences in the provincial capital, Bukavu. Their speedy trial and sentencing by a mobile court is a welcome sign of a new commitment to ending impunity for sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.