Reconstruction and Peacebuilding

Canada should threaten to withhold aid to Afghanistan unless women are fully included in the peace process and push for more women in the country's security forces, a new Senate report says.

Canada should also put resources into helping build the justice system, particularly in remote communities, and provide gender sensitivity training for the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police, as well as their Canadian trainers.

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.

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.

A Palestinian woman being held in prison by the Israelis has entered the fifteenth day of a hunger strike. Linan Abu Ghalma, 28, from Nablus in the occupied West Bank was abducted from her home by the Israeli occupation forces in July at the same time as her sister. It is reported that her health is deteriorating badly.

As calls for an early election grow louder, the country's civic society groups want government to launch a countrywide investigation into politically motivated rape cases against women.

With only five years left until the 2015 deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, we know what is needed to unleash the potential of women and children around the globe and particularly those in Africa.

But just knowing is not enough - we need to take action and take it now.

Rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment "occur nearly twice as often within military ranks as they do within civilian life" and are the leading cause of post-traumatic stress disorder in women veterans, but the Pentagon refuses to release information on it, or on its feeble efforts to help women who suffer from it, the Service Women's Action Network says in a federal FOIA complaint.