Monica McWilliams and Luz Méndez stood side by side at the center of the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice Theatre stage and, quite appropriately, the bright lights shined on them.

Last year, I reported with the intrepid Glenna Gordon a story about Liberia's Court E, a court chamber in the capital city of Monrovia dedicated only to rape cases. The court, which will turn two in Februrary, was a direct response to what many people we met called a rape "epidemic" in Liberia. The country's post-war rape stats are sky-high, and most of the victims are young girls.

I am currently at the 2010 Women Peacemaker Conference at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice. This year's conference —“Precarious Progress: UN Resolutions on Women, Peace and Security” — brings together 175 practitioners, policymakers, academics, and activists from over 40 countries to examine where and how United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 has had and can have impact.

On 9 September 2010 the European Union (EU) and Belgium organised an event in Brussels called 'Ensuring women's participation in peace and security' to mark the 10th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution (SCR) 1325.

Some of the speakers made reference to small arms control in relation to SCR 1325 although these comments were not recorded in the Conference Conclusions document (attached). They included:

Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace is a peace movement started by women in Liberia, Africa that brought an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003. Organized by social worker Leymah Gbowee, the movement started with local women praying and singing in a fish market.

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The Global Effort was launched on the first anniversary of Security Council Resolution 1820 on Women, Peace and Security on 7 August 2009.

One year later the percentage of female police peacekeepers has increased from 8 percent to 9 percent.

On Sept. 23, retired United States Army Col. Ann Wright met with a sizeable audience at the Interfaith Center to deliver a lecture titled "What Are We Doing in Iraq and Afghanistan? How Does It Affect Iraqi, Afghan and U.S. Women?"

Recently, at a "Global Affairs Conference on Empowering Women for Health," I was stunned: Not only did "gender" never arise as a reason for disparities in access to health care in poor countries; all the data presented was based on males!

An important interview that also reveals a lot about what Obama's surge in Afghanistan means on the ground: "American troops are much more in evidence now, much more active, causing far more civilian casualties. And since the Obama surge, if we can call it that, the civilian casualties have gone up about 25 percent. Six thousand were killed last year. The number is likely to be higher now.