Addis Ababa, 3 December 2010 – With support from JRS, a group of refugee women have recently launched a beauty salon, putting them on the road to self-sufficiency.

(Nairobi) - The arrest of more than 60 Sudanese women's rights activists on December 14, 2010, for peacefully protesting the lashing of a woman by police shows the urgent need to reform Sudan's public order laws and practices, Human Rights Watch said today. The system imposes illegitimate restrictions on a range of personal behavior and public expression and disproportionately targets women, Human Rights Watch said.

The United Nations stepped up its battle against sexual violence in conflicts around the world today with the Security Council calling for perpetrators to be publicly listed and punished with sanctions.

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.

A JOINT study by Fiji School of Medicine and the World Health Organisation revealed that majority of women who are victims of violence are indigenous Fijians.

Senior lecturer of the department of public health and primary care of FNU Dr Timaima Tuiketei who is one of the researchers said during the study they took data from 16 health centres around Fiji and analyzed them.

I remember when I was a small child and in middle of the night and early hours of the morning I heard a cry, a scream, and other disturbing screams; it was the women in my neighborhood located in the small town of Marondera responding to physical and mental abuse by their husbands. My mother was not spared either. Women would

Global Report of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) "State of the World Population 2010" was launched at the National Press Center of Uzbekistan on 16 December.

UNFPA office in Tashkent and Women's Committee of Uzbekistan joined hands in organization of media-briefing to launch the Report and discuss the issues of women's rights and empowerment in times of crises.

The International Criminal Court, the first permanent tribunal set up to prosecute individuals for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, opened its doors in 2002. Five years earlier, people in the global women's movement had organised a women's caucus for gender justice to bring about this happy event, and the existence of the ICC is in no small part the result of their concerted efforts.

The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition joins the world in commemorating the 16 days of activism against gender based violence and calls upon the inclusive government to urgently dismantle structures of violence which have been used to instigate politically motivated violence against women. The Coalition demands that perpetrators of these abuses should be prosecuted ahead of any possible election.

Khartoum, 16 Dec. (AKI) - Forty thousand women in Sudan are subject to police whippings for moral transgressions each year, a figure that came to light after a video was circulated on the Internet which showed the public thrashing of a Khartoum woman.

Sudanese feminist and political figure Mariam al-Sadiq al-Madi brought the issue to the attention of authorities, the Sudanese daily al-Sharq al-Awsat reported.