Just a few weeks ago, as millions of families gathered in the United States to celebrate Thanksgiving, a lesser-known event went by unnoticed. The International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women kicked off 16 Days of Activism, an international campaign to end gender-based violence.

Community Organization for Mobilization Empowerment–Sierra Leone (COME-SL), a civil society organization working in partnership with various other organizations including ActionAid International-Sierra Leone, Feed the Minds UK and the Justice Sector Development Programme of Sierra Leone is taking the lead in promoting poor and excluded rural women's access to justice in the Baoma Chiefdom of Bo District, Southern Sierra Leone.

Sudan is the largest country in Africa, bordering nine countries, with population of 34 million, according to the last census. Sudan is characterized by huge diversity, it is multi-religious, multi-cultural, and multi-linguistic. It is a country blessed with immense natural resources in agriculture, livestock, minerals and soil, which awaits only sustainable peace, stability and capital to materialize into real wealth.

At the Dr. John Garang Mausoleum in the heart of Juba, under a baking morning sun, two dozen or so men wait patiently in line to be registered to vote. A separate line for women lies woefully empty.

About 30 Sudanese women have been arrested for holding a protest march over a video which allegedly shows a policeman whipping a woman.

The women were detained as they tried to hand a petition to the justice ministry in Khartoum.

The authorities have said they are investigating the alleged whipping, which has been widely circulated on the YouTube website.

On November 1, 2010, Dilma Rosseau was elected President of Brazil. The daughter of a Bulgarian immigrant, she was a revolutionary guerilla in the 1970's who was imprisoned for three years and tortured for 22 days with electric shock, but most importantly, today, she's a female leader, one of several political women selected recently to guide Latin American nations.

11/12/2010 - Maternal mortality rates in Somalia are much too high. In order to improve maternal and child health, women must be able to better access medical care.

Galkayo (RBC Radio):- THE curtain fell in style 10th December 2010 on the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence campaign in Galkayo Town, Puntland State Somalia, when hundreds of youth and their supporters draped in red and white head bands gathered for the final match of a soccer tournament organized to commemorate the campaign.

KHARTOUM — Sudan's judiciary is investigating the brutal whipping of a young woman, allegedly by uniformed police, after shocking images were circulated on the Internet, media reports said on Monday.

The Research and Advocacy Unit (RAU) and the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) recently concluded a study and produced the first report coming out of Zimbabwe focussing on politically motivated rape in the country. Since this was a clinical rather than an epidemiological study, there was no attempt to determine either the prevalence of political rape or to establish how representative the sample was.