Female opposition lawmaker, Hon. Veronica Sesay, representing Constituency 85 in Moyamba District, southern Sierra Leone, has called on all political parties to encourage and empower more women to participate in politics in general and parliamentary politics in particular by according them more opportunities to contest for parliamentary seats and to be given key positions in Parliament.

In late November 2013, Egyptian police rounded up 14 female activists in downtown Cairo, including three prominent women who had helped lead the first protests against former President Hosni Mubarak's regime in 2011. Three years later, the women were still at it, now protesting military trials against civilians and a draconian new law banning public demonstrations without a permit.

GENEVA (AP) — The leader of Syria's Western-backed opposition said Thursday he will give his negotiating team the authority it needs in any talks with President Bashar Assad's government.

“My whole life I never spoke English. Now, at my age, I can write my name and I know my ABCs and 123s,” said an elderly woman at a gathering with UN Women delegates from New York held in Bopolu, a town tucked away in Liberia's northern Gharpolu County.

The Special Representative of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission (SRCC) Ambassador Mahamat Saleh Annadif has applauded the relentless efforts of Somali women in shaping the country's destiny during a meeting with female representatives of the Somali civil society.

Preliminary research in two provinces has found that a lack of implementation of the domestic violence law means that women continue to suffer abuse and more needs to be done to ensure that attitudes change and perpetrators are held accountable.

In India, a new female-friendly handgun has sparked renewed scrutiny over how women can protect themselves from sexual violence.

Pro-Pakistan Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani Sunday announced the formation of pan-Kashmir women wing of his party, Tehreek-e-Hurriyat.

The formation of women wing of Hurriyat, which will be headed by Mr Geelani, was formally announced at the party headquarters in Srinagar.

A spokesperson of the party said the decision to form the women wing was driven by their specified role for Islam, unification and freedom movement.

Walk around Dzaipi transit centre in northern Uganda and you will see thousands of children running about, tents full of pregnant women, young mothers and newborns, and elderly women resting against trees. What you do not see are many men.

Cheers broke out in the National Assembly building here on Monday as representatives chose the mayor of this beleaguered capital to serve as the interim president of the Central African Republic, a country in the grip of a sectarian civil war.