Across the world, women make up about half the population yet they never come close to holding 50 percent of the positions of power in any government.

Women must play a greater role in South Sudan's political life, from drawing up the country's constitution to translating it into law, a United Nations official has urged, as the African nation prepares to draft its first legal framework.

A constitutional body in Iran has ruled that women cannot run in presidential elections scheduled for June 14.

Mohammad Yazdi, a clerical member of the Guardian Council, said the Constitution ruled out the participation of women, British broadcaster BBC reported May 17. Thirty women registered as candidates, but there had been little expectation they would be allowed to stand.

“Wahhabist fighters have called the rape as ‘Jihad al-Nikah,' assuming women and girl as war prisoners, and raping them as permissible,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said, in the first official recognition of the phenomenon in Syria.

Islamic fundamentalist politicians in Afghanistan have stopped a debate on whether to give parliamentary approval to a law protecting women against violence.

Proceedings were brought to an end amid angry scenes when traditionalists demanded a repeal of the law.

At the age of 20, Damián Valencia speaks knowledgeably about every aspect of gender equality. He is a member of Cascos Rosa, a young people's initiative working for cultural change against machismo and violence against women in Ecuador.

In a classroom tucked away from the world in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, students practice spelling.

Ranging in age from 6 to 11, these girls all have one thing in common: They have either been raped or suffered through the rape of a loved one.

Even the 6-year-old is a rape survivor. The baby of the class, she can't quite keep up with the spelling lesson but is happy to clap along.

Three officers of the Emergency Response Unit (ERU) of the Liberia National Police have reportedly ganged raped a 23-year-old woman in Yekepa, Nimba County.

The ERU officers had earlier offered the victim a lift in their car, but while on the Yekepa-Sanniquellie highway, they stopped and held the victim at gunpoint before raping her, the Ministry of Gender Child Welfare Office in Nimba has reported.

India's "Red Brigade" is a group of angry young women with a simple message for the country's sexual predators: change your ways or be ready to face the consequences.

Dressed in bright red shirts and loose black pants, the brigade's members are fed up with deeply ingrained patriarchal mindsets and promote a brand of vigilante justice that is testing the law in their home state of Uttar Pradesh.

Despite threats from militant groups, many women headed to the polls in Pakistan to vote in the country's historic elections Saturday.

Attacks killed 24 and wounded dozens more during the day in a continuation of what has been a brutal election season with more than 130 people killed in bombings and shootings.