Daw Nita Yin Yin May From Women Of Burma Uk On Eu & Usa Policy On Burma & Reject 2010 Election

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We have known for a long time that AIDS in Africa is increasingly a woman's disease. In 2002, when Kofi Annan, then the UN Secretary General, famously declared that "AIDS has a woman's face," young women in sub-Saharan Africa (aged 15-24) were about twice as likely to be infected with HIV as men of the same age.

Corporate executives take note: In coming decades, the majority of global population growth will occur in countries where gender disparities are greatest and where conservative traditions and customs work against women's rights. Entrenched gender discrimination remains a defining fact of life for most of the world's bottom 2 billion, and that is not only a critical human rights issue but also a pressing economic issue.

This year 2010 marks the celebration of 15 years of the implementation of the Beijing Platform of Action; 10 years since the landmark UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and 20 years of the global campaign for 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence. Despite women's progress on the political front and their centrally placing structural and physical violence against women in the public sphere, the insecurity of women has escalated.

On the occasion of the International Day of Women Human Rights Defenders on November 29 and the 10th anniversary of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325, the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition (WHRD IC) critically reflects on Structures of Violence: Defining the Intersections of Militarism and Violence Against Women, the theme of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence for 2010.

The Defense Department should eliminate restrictions on women serving in combat units and end all “gender restrictive policies,” according to a blue-ribbon panel created by Congress.

The move would end the military's long tradition of all-male combat units and open up career fields like infantry and armor to “qualified women.”

17-year-old Rand ‘Abd al-Qader was killed in the city of Basra on 16 March 2008. She was murdered by her father, apparently assisted by two of her brothers, because she had developed a friendship with a British soldier based in the city.

The many cultures in Afghanistan have one thing in common: They shelter their women from the outside world. In order to reach the "hidden" 50 percent of the Afghan population, NATO and U.S. forces in that country have adopted a strategy used successfully in Iraq, the female engagement team (FET). The Marine version of the program was called "Lioness" training.

A year after President Obama's troop surge to Afghanistan, new poll results published yesterday in The Washington Post show that Afghans are less confident in the United States and its allies to provide security and are more willing to negotiate with the Taliban. More than half of Afghans surveyed nationwide said that U.S. and NATO should begin to withdraw troops from their country by mid-2011 or earlier.

To much applause, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was a surprise speaker on the TEDWomen stage this afternoon. Dressed in gray jacket and slacks, she said with a broad smile, “If TEDWoman is in D.C., I have to be part of this.”