As the number of reported sexual crimes in Timor Leste increases, survivors - mostly women and girls - must wait up to one year as their cases wind through a struggling court system.

Why should Canada bother helping Afghan women and girls when Canadian combat troops withdraw next year? What right does the West have to force its aggressive, feminist values on the Afghan people?

"I had so many dreams for my life, but when I saw him, they just disappeared." Saraya spoke softly, her hunched-over body and nervously twisting hands testimony to all she says she has had to endure.

"I told my father I didn't want to marry him: 'why are you doing this to me?'" She continued: "My father said 'you are of an age to be married and this is my decision, not yours.'"

The modern Indonesian women's movement began in the early 1900s, hand-in-hand with the growing nationalism in the country marked by the establishment of nationalist organizations initiated by a small number of educated Indonesians.

Important events occurred in line with this nationalism, such as the Youth Congress on Oct. 28, 1928, which resulted in the famous youth pledge, Sumpah Pemuda.

Every day after school, Puoet Sokhea comes home to a ramshackle hut in Rovieng district, Preah Vihear province, and begins her daily chores. She stokes the fire, washes pots and pans, sets the rice to boil. She has nine brothers and sisters, her parents and an aging grandmother—and few opportunities to help support them.

More than 30 women were raped in a coordinated attack in the Democratic Republic of Congo on New Year's Day, the aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières has reported.

MSF said 33 women were raped in Fizi, South Kivu, in the eastern part of the war-torn country.

More is being asked of the United Nations by more people in more places.

The United Nations today leads what seems at times like a double life. Pundits criticise it for not solving all the world's ills, yet people around the world are asking it to do more, in more places, than ever before - a trend that will continue in 2011.

UN Women, the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, will come into operation from January 1, 2011.

UN Women was created by the United Nations General Assembly on July 2, 2010 to accelerate progress in meeting the needs of women and girls worldwide.

The United Nations made history today as UN Women, the UN agency dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, has officially begun its work. This ambitious new organization consolidates and scales up UN actions to achieve gender equality, offering the promise of accelerated progress in realizing the rights of women worldwide.