A women's group says the military in Myanmar is still using rape as a weapon of war, with more than 100 women and girls raped by the army since a 2010 election brought about a nominally civilian government that has pursued rapprochement with the West.

A militia group has killed 27 Muslims in a village in the Central African Republic, the United Nations said on Friday.

The Christian militia, known as anti-Balaka, killed the Muslims on Thursday in Bohong, a village about 75 km (47 miles) from the far western town of Bouar, the U.N. Human Rights office said.

The United Nations entity tasked with advancing gender equality today applauded the appointment of two women to the team negotiating between Colombian authorities and the rebel group known as the FARC.

“We applaud this deliberate effort by President [Juan Manuel] Santos to bring greater gender balance to his negotiating team to bring peace to Colombia,” UN Women said in a news release.

As civil war raged in Burundi since the 1996 outbreak of armed conflict between ethnic Tutsi and Hutu groups, in his role as Facilitator for the Burundi Peace Negotiations, former South African President Nelson Mandela worked with one of UN Women's predecessor organizations to bring women to the peace table for the first time.

The idea of Girl Up Initiative Uganda came to founders Kim Wolf and friend Monica Nyiraguhabwa last year as they walked through one of the many slums of Kampala, the largest city and the capital of Uganda.

The pair realized they could make a difference in the lives of young girls living in the borough — many of them in desperate need of leadership, empowerment and health education.

The promotion of women's participation in elected assemblies will remain among the top priorities of the authorities, which will continue their relentless efforts in this regard, Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said Tuesday in Algiers in the opening speech read on his behalf by Minister of Relations with Parliament Mahmoud Khedri at the International Conference on "Women's effective and sustained participation in elected assemblies.&quot

For the past two decades women's bodies have become the battlefield as gangs of combatants have committed atrocities in the Democrat Republic of Congo (DRC), according to Dr. Denis Mukwege Mukengere, who recently spoke at a World Bank seminar on sexual and gender-based violence in Eastern DRC.”

This is the first of two articles by Mariz Tadros discussing the disjunctures between the current international discourse on gender based violence and women's realities on the ground in 'Arab transition' contexts.

Only three women won seats in the Indian capital's 70-member assembly in recent elections, showing women continue to face huge obstacles to political empowerment in the world's largest democracy, activists said on Monday.

To highlight the issues of inter-faith harmony and rights of women at the national level, AAWAZ, in collaboration with five well-known civil society organisations – the Aurat Foundation, South Asia Partnership-Pakistan, Strengthening Participatory Organisation, Sungi Development Foundation and Sustainable Development Policy – held a national conference on women, peace and social harmony on Monday.