Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed the first woman to command a United Nations peacekeeping force — a Norwegian general who has served in Lebanon, the first Gulf War, Bosnia and Afghanistan.

Maj. Gen. Kristin Lund will replace Chinese Maj. Gen. Chao Liu on Aug. 13 as commander of about 1,000 U.N. peacekeepers in Cyprus, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric announced Monday.

“My 10 year old daughter decided to follow me when I visited a friend at the hospital. She managed to escape from my sister's and got on a bus. But she never found me. Instead I got a call from the police: she had been taken by a stranger and raped. I could not stop crying. What had ruined my life when I was 21 had now happened to my child too.”

The Khmer Rouge have been blamed for many horrors in Cambodia, but until relatively recently the regime's use of sexual violence has not been well known.

Now the UN-backed war crimes tribunal has been asked to examine a range of allegations covering their period in power in the second half of the 1970s.

Both parties in the war in South Sudan have used rape and extreme sexual violence resulting in the death of girls and women, according to a report based on eyewitness accounts by Amnesty International.

Minister for Law and Justice Narahari Acharya today met women' rights activists, who are staging a sit-in protest at Bhadrakali to press for the fulfilment of a 10-point charter of demands.

A coalition of civil society groups, human rights activists and other good spirited Nigerians led by Women for Peace and Justice, yesterday held a one million-man march in Lagos to call for the release of the kidnapped Chibok girls.

EFFORTS to enhance women's participation in politics beginning from the 2015 general elections received a boost during the week in Calabar, Cross River State, when a five-point demand presented by the woman leaders got unanimous endorsement by the chairmen of political parties in the country.

Millions of Indians are now selecting the men and women who will run the country. Over the next five years, the decisions and opinions of these elected leaders will be instrumental in shaping India's stand on gender equality — from women's participation in politics or the economy, to the passing of the women's reservation Bill or even the manner in which businesses prioritise gender equality.

Yemeni women are fighting for their rights in the same way as Western women. It is time for them to ensure their hard won liberties in the new constitution.

April 25th marked a conferenced organized by the Italian organization Minerva and International Law Association, with the support of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that was called Women's Rights in the Constitution and Asserting them in Yemeni Society.

Four political parties and seven civil society organisations strongly criticised the passage of laws dealing with upcoming parliamentary elections without consultation with women's groups and organisations.