NAIROBI, Kenya -- Last week two girls, aged 14 and 18, were shot in a public execution in Somalia after the extremist al Shabaab Islamic movement accused them of being spies.

But as the news broke, a group of Somali women were meeting in Nairobi to discuss their role in bringing peace to the war-torn country.

The Somali rebel group Al-shababa has ordered women and children for the participation in the ongoing fight in the country, local has reported.

The rebel fights against the government forces and their allied troops of the African union troops popularly known as AMISOM in the capital, Mogadishu.

GENEVA, Switzerland, Nov. 2 (UPI) -- Sexual violence like that in the Congo is a war crime and requires a sea change in the role women play in reconstruction, the ICRC said.

A U.N. human rights team found that more than 300 civilians were raped in the Congo by militants July 30-Aug. 2.

The rapes were allegedly carried out by members of the Congolese Mai Mai militia and the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda.

Kinshasa, 2 November 2010 - On the 10th anniversary of the adoption of Security Council Resolution 1325, the UN system in partnership with the Ministry of Gender, Family and Children organized a Day of advocacy and sensitization for mobilization of funds in favor of the National Action Plan under the guidelines of Resolution 1325 in Kinshasa on October 30, 2010.

Durfo — Over 100 women in Durfo administrative area, Central region, are now able to read and write thanks to the Adult Education Program.

The women from the villages of Arbe-Rebu'e, Antsefet and Adi-Shuma continued their education from Grade 1 to 3, according to Mr. Gezai Haile, head of Adult Education Program in North-east Asmara administrative area.

The following editorial appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Oct. 28.

Women In Peace Building Network(WENIP), under the auspices of West Africa Action Network for Peace Building (WANEP), with support from Action Aid The Gambia recently ended a two-day training for some 60 women drawn from all the regions on UNSC Resolution 1325 at the Jenoi Agricultural Centre in Lower River Region.

It is lunch time at the Light Stream Academy School on Pagos Island in Monrovia. The stretch of land, with more than 4000 inhabitants, is completely cut off from the rest of the capital. It is surrounded by swamps and marshland. The only access routes are by foot. Dozens of children, wearing green and white uniforms play in the school yard.

A pioneering research project and report commissioned by the Kurdistan Regional Government on honour-based violence was launched in Erbil on November 25, the international day for the elimination of violence against women.

The two-year research project was commissioned in 2008 by the then prime minister Nechirvan Barzani to investigate honour-based violence in Kurdistan and among the Kurdish community in Britain.

A Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) on Sexual Violence was appointed. Four existing UN agencies focusing on gender were merged to create a new gender entity called UN Women. Michelle Bachelet, the former president of Chile, will head the new organization, and the UN hopes that the budget will soon reach $1 billion - double the combined budgets of the four existing agencies.