Human rights has been a hot topic in Afghanistan since the Taliban's near-medieval treatment of Afghan girls and women became known. Now that Afghanistan is working toward a more modern society and government, the rights of the nation's female population are moving front and center for those in charge of NATO Training Mission Afghanistan and Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan.

The media report that Egyptian authorities are preparing to talk to opposition leaders, including - potentially - the Muslim Brotherhood. But where are the women? Watching BBC TV, Channel 4 and Al Jazeera it is hard not to be struck by the prominence of women in the squares alongside the men calling for democracy. When the going got tough, right in there Tahrir square were Egyptian women doctors tending the wounded.

“The impact study is a call to action to the senior leadership of peacekeeping to accelerate implementation of resolution 1325,” UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Alain Le Roy said, referring to the Council's resolution of October 2000, which sought to end sexual violence against women and girls in armed conflict and encourage greater participation by them in peacebuilding initiatives.

A convenor of a non-governmental organization of Filipinos of mostly Muslim heritage on Monday expressed that Muslim women “are largely excluded from formal peace talks.”

The spiritual leader of Russia's Muslim Chechnya region called on women on Wednesday to dress more "modestly" and only show their face and hands, in the latest attempt by authorities to install Islamic ideas.

When independent researchers fanned out across military-ruled Myanmar's mountainous Chin State to catalogue human-rights abuses, they expected to hear the usual disturbing stories of ethnic minority women being raped by government troops. But the research uncovered an unexpected new trend of abuse: Chin men were also being sexually violated by male soldiers in the country's remote northwestern corner.

Some 6,221 cases of violence against women were reported in the country from January to August 2010 including 778 cases of murder, 302 cases of honour killing and 1,611 cases of sexual assault.

Parveena Ahangar's unassuming nature and calm demeanour does not betray the pain and agony that the Srinagar-based founder of Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) is going through. Ahangar's son went missing in 1991. “For the last 20 years, I have been moving in and out of districts in Kashmir, with the hope that I will find my son somehow,” she said.

The National Council of Lebanese Women called Thursday for an active participation of women in the upcoming Lebanese cabinet.