"Violence against women, violence against our mothers and sisters has reached an unacceptable level and we all must join efforts to put this to an end," says Oniel Bestman, one of many men who participated in the One Billion Rising for Justice Campaign in Monrovia.

It was a sunny Friday afternoon. The sky was blue and a special feeling of love and affection filled the air... it was Valentine's Day.

During the National Assembly debate on the State of the Nation Address this year, the Minister for Women, Children and People with Disabilities, Lulu Xingwana, spoke passionately about the advancement of women.

She said the country had made great strides in addressing gender discrimination, and in creating institutions and mechanisms for women's empowerment and gender equality.

Women from the 17 districts of Mogadishu have staged anti-Al Shabaab protest in Mogadishu in support of lasting peace and tranquility across the war-ravaged nation on Sunday, Garowe Online reports.

This past Saturday marked three years since Haiti was stuck by a devastating earthquake. There is a place in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, called Cité Soleil. It means Sun City, and it is the poorest place, most dangerous place to live in this hemisphere.

It's been four years since Port-au-Prince collapsed, and Haiti's women are still working through the damage—both physical and mental—left by the catastrophic 2010 earthquake and its aftermath. The cameras and reporters have gone, but the twinned scourges of violence and exploitation continue to haunt Haiti's ruins.

The minister of social development in South Sudan's Eastern Equatoria state, Paska Hifita, has called on women across the region's eight counties to engage in peace building efforts as a way of unifying the nation.

The women of Port Loko District on Valentine's Day celebrated the first One Billion rising in Africa V-Day on the theme, ‘Strike, Dance and Demand Justice' from the police, education, health and the judiciary.

On 14 January 2014 the closing ceremony of the VII course on Women Leadership was held in the municipality of Antiguo Cuscatlan, in El Salvador.

Time is a luxury and those without money, safety and security don't have it. What the current situation in Central African Republic, the crisis in Democratic Republic of Congo in 2012 and the response to the Haiti earthquake in 2010 have in common is that lives were lost, and bodies and minds irreparably damaged, by the wasting of precious time looking for 'proof' of violence against women and girls.

In recent years, Somali women and girls living in makeshift camps in and around Mogadishu have experienced a wave of sexual violence. Local and international rights organizations have blamed both government soldiers and militia groups. In a report released Thursday, Human Rights Watch called on the Somali government to adopt reforms to deal with widespread sexual violence against women.