Twenty years after independence, representation of women in senior government structures and in Parliament is declining in Namibia. According to the latest demographic survey results of August 2010, out of a population of around 2 million, women outnumber men 10:9. In 2001, the ratio was 94 males per 100 females.

A biweekly bulletin has for the past year been helping to transform the lives of women in Maluku's capital.

The 16-page gazette, called Koran Ibu (Mothers' News) , has been training poorly educated women to become journalists so they can bring attention to the often neglected issues facing women and children in the province .

In modern times, Kashmir is known more for violence less for scenic beauty. Two decades conflict has not only done irreparable loss to life and property but has done unimaginable harm to the women folk, who are at the receiving end directly and indirectly.

Colombia's armed groups and, to a far lesser extent, its army raped 14,779 women between 2001 and 2009 - or five women a day on average - and forced hundreds more into prostitution, a study has found.

Women in Afghanistan are being recruited as front line police officers for the first time, UK broadcaster Sky News reported on Wednesday.

In the past, women were only allowed to carry out menial support tasks in the back office.

But now the Afghan authorities, with the help of British instructors, are training women to help their male colleagues at the Afghan National Police (ANP) tackle the most dangerous of insurgents.

Women in conflict zones are often singled out for violent attack. But the women of West Africa are finding that one way to fight back is through economic empowerment.

Tina Jatei Kpan remembers the exact date during Liberia's 14-year civil war when she thought she was going to die, because it was supposed to be an unlucky day.

Local non-governmental organization Hands Empowering the Less Privileged in Sierra Leone (HELP-SL) with support from Cord Aid Netherlands has commenced a seven-day facilitators' training workshop on 'Star Circle Methodology' at Segbwema, Jong chiefdom, Bonthe district, southern Sierra Leone.

Women represent more than 60 percent of the registered voters in Abidjan, Ivory Coast's largest city. They are increasingly a force to be reckoned with in the country's politics. It is a trend that has not been lost on the country's presidential hopefuls, including the two remaining candidates, President Laurent Gbagbo and former prime minister, Alassane Ouattara, who will face off in a second round on November 28.

Iraq has run out of money to pay for widows' benefits, farm crops and other programmes for the poor, its parliament was told yesterday.

In only their fourth session since being elected in March, MPs demanded to know what happened to the estimated £625 million allocated for welfare funding by the finance ministry for 2010.

The new Iraqi government, which received a vote of confidence from parliament on Tuesday, is almost exclusively male, with the exception of a lone woman who is a minister without portfolio.

Bushra Hussein Saleh is a deputy from Fadhila, a small Shiite fundamentalist party that is a member of the National Alliance grouping of Shiite parties.