Mr Abubakar Bachaka, the Chief Whip of the Nigerian Youth Parliament, has said that investing in women and girls can help to promote gender equity in Nigeria.

Backaka made the statement in Abuja on Monday in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

Dozens of women protested Tuesday ouside Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's Ramallah office demanding the adaptation for laws that would protect them against violence and crime.

Woman's Affairs Technical Committee (WATC) member, Lubna Ashqar, told Wafa that they want a law that “can ensure dignity and justice for all the women of Palestine.”

Internally displaced people in Somalia are suffering sexual violence and other forms of abuse, reports the Human Rights Watch (HRW) campaign group.

The abuse takes place at the hands of armed groups, including government forces, it says.

In the report, women who fled famine and conflict describe being gang-raped in camps in the capital, Mogadishu.

The sheer number of women sexually abused and gang raped in a single public square had become too big to ignore. Conservative Islamists in Egypt's new political elite were outraged — at the women.

“Sometimes,” said Adel Abdel Maqsoud Afifi, a police general, lawmaker and ultraconservative Islamist, “a girl contributes 100 percent to her own raping when she puts herself in these conditions.”

Indian campaigners have accused the car company Ford of sabotaging attempts to reduce the rising number of rapes after an advertisement showed three scantily-dressed young women in the boot of its Figo car.

The ad, which was produced by its Indian advertising agency JWT, provoked an outcry after it was released onto the internet with women's rights groups attacking the company for insensitivity.

Several Libyan organisations fighting for women's rights held a demo on Thursday morning against deteriorating human rights situation of women in the country.

Gathered in front of the headquarters of the Council of Ministers, the protesters denounced high rate of persecution, violence, harassment, kidnapping and rape of women.

In March 2004, President George W. Bush gave a speech to an audience of 250 women from around the world to commemorate International Women's Day. His speech focused on the women of Iraq and Afghanistan who he proudly proclaimed were “learning the blessings of freedom” thanks to the United States.

Around 700 years ago, Queen Goharshad, wife of a Timouri heir, is said to have inspired a Renaissance in Herat, Afghanistan's western province. Seven centuries later, a group of women filmmakers in Afghanistan have inspired a similar change in their war-ravaged country.

Hivos welcomes the establishment of the Syrian Women's Forum for Peace (SWFP), which aims to strengthen the role of Syrian women in forging peace in Syria and push Syrian and international public opinion to ensure that decision-makers adopt peaceful means in building a democratic state in Syria.

The U.N. organ tasked with maintaining international peace and security harbours a serious conflict at its core.

The Security Council's five permanent members (P5) – United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France – along with Germany, are the world's six leading arms exporters, often shipping weapons used to perpetuate violence across the globe.