Iranian lawmaker Fatemeh Ajorlu has criticized the United Nations for the approach it has adopted toward the plight of women and children in the occupied territories.

Ajorlu made the remarks on Saturday at the 55th session of the Commission on the Status of Women which opened at United Nations Headquarters in New York on February 22 and runs until March 4.

The Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic group dating to 1928, is stirring speculation about its influence on women in post-Mubarak Egypt. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born Dutch politician, among others, is wary.

As it reaffirmed its commitment to the peacekeeping operations of the United Nations (UN), the Philippine Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York (NYPM) pushed for the deployment of more female peacekeepers.

After decades of conflict in Afghanistan, there are almost two million widows leading secluded, poverty-stricken lives. But now all-female army units are going into remote villages in an effort to integrate these women into wider society.

In a small village on the edge of the Bolan desert, near Laskhar Gah, a group of women sit huddled together on a sunny terrace. Some are girls, barely out of their teens.

Anti-government protesters, who have taken to the streets of Khartoum and other Sudanese cities over recent weeks, run the risk of sexual assault, torture and detention, say human rights workers and demonstrators.

In a groundbreaking 1994 report The Asia Foundation identified some of the underlying causes of domestic violence in Cambodia: a culture of male dominance; police reluctance to intervene; pressure on women victims not to sully their families' reputations; and, the Khmer ideal of a “perfect lady,” still taught in schools, which instructs wives never to say anything negative about their husbands.

With Timor-Leste continuing to consolidate peace and stability and promote development, the United Nations is already planning for the end of a mission in the once troubled country that could serve as an example for other operations, a senior UN official said today.

A leading human rights group released a report Monday documenting the proliferation of human rights abuses in Iraq since the United States' invasion in 2003.

Among the most egregious cases, the 102-page report by Human Rights Watch identifies women, journalists, detainees and marginalised groups, including internally displaced persons and religious minorities, as the most vulnerable populations in Iraq.

In the small Latin American country of Guatemala, violence against women is a widespread problem girls deal with from a young age.

It sounds almost playful, but "Eve teasing" is a daily torment for many women in South Asia, who are now trying to call time on what they see as a bland euphemism for sustained sexual harassment.

Widely used for decades by the media and police in India and Bangladesh, and to a lesser extent in Nepal and Pakistan, "Eve-teasing" is a catch-all term that encompasses anything from lewd comments to assault.