The Minister of Gender and Family Promotion, Dr Jeanne d'Arc Mujawamariya, on Thursday, launched "16 days of activism" in Gisagara District, calling for more efforts from the community in the fight against Gender Based Violence (GBV).

The international event is celebrated annually to create awareness against gender-based violence.

The Minister of Gender and Family Promotion, Dr. Jeanne d'Arc Mujawamariya, has requested churches to involve more women in leadership roles as a means of promoting gender equality in Rwanda.

She made the remarks on Thursday while opening of the National conference on the Role of Association of Pentecostal Churches in Rwanda (ADEPR), in promoting gender parity.

This year's 16 Days of Activism campaign focuses on women and conflict, a timely theme considering we are also reviewing 10 years since the adoption of United Nations Security Council resolution 1325.

This resolution linked violence against women during conflict and their marginalisation during peace processes with the challenges of maintaining international peace and security.

Joint efforts by the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion, the National Police and the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) in fighting Gender Based Violence (GBV) are bearing fruit with the number of cases drastically going down.

I have been back in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), for two weeks now meeting with leaders, activists, social workers, therapists, recent survivors, business owners, UN officials. There is good news and bad news. The bad news is that the situation on the ground remains the same if not worse.

All the way from North to Southern Africa rapists prowl the continent's fields for their next victims. And it is of course women who bear the deepest scars from Africa's wars.

The statistics out of the continent have never been more appalling. From Cairo to Cape, the continent's daughters continue to face gruesome sexual attacks from their male peers.

Amid incessant campaigns to end violence against women, the abuse of women continues right in front of our eyes.

Just one day before the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on Nov. 25, Septi, a housewife from Kebon Jeruk, West Jakarta, was reportedly dragged behind a motorcycle because the tea she made for her husband wasn't sweet enough.

Ending violence against women is not the work of a day or even a year. It will require concentrated efforts on many fronts with governments, non-profit organisations, and citizen leaders all pulling together.

Most importantly, it will require fully tapping the largest and most natural group of allies women have: men.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has officially launched the Agenda for Acceleratig Country Action on Women, Girls, Gender Equality and HIV, a pilot program which again puts Liberia at the verge of history-making.

A new survey says more than one in three South African men admit to having committed rape.

A 2010 study led by the government-funded Medical Research Foundation says that in Gauteng province, home to South Africa's most populous city of Johannesburg, more than 37 percent of men said they had raped a woman. Nearly 7 percent of the 487 men surveyed said they had participated in a gang rape.