Reeva Steenkamp, the model and law graduate shot and killed by Oscar Pistorius, was statistically just one of three women killed on Valentine's Day by an intimate partner, according to a study on violence against women that damns South Africa as having “the highest rate ever reported in research anywhere in the world.”

Kenyan women failed to win more elective positions in the just concluded general elections, with no woman candidate winning governor and senator positions, meaning none of Kenya's 47 local governments will be led by a woman.

Some 16 women have been elected as Members of the National Assembly in this year's General Election. And the National Gender and Equality Commission (NGEC) commended Central voters for electing more women to Parliament.

The Women's Initiative Network for Peace has urged President U Thein Sein and the Deputy Commander in Chief of the Kachin Independence Organization to include representatives of ethnic women's civil society groups in all aspects of peace processes.

WIN-Peace, organised by 46 women representative from 30 ethnic women's organisations nationwide, sent the request via letter to the president and General Gon Maw on February 19.

One in two men said they had used physical or sexual violence against an intimate partner, one in four reported having raped a woman and one in 25 admitted to having participated in gang rape.

MOGADISHU, Somalia (Reuters) — A Somali court on Sunday freed a journalist who was jailed in January for interviewing a woman who said she was gang-raped by five government soldiers, a case that sparked international condemnation over Somalia's treatment of victims of sexual violence and its commitment to press freedom.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today announced the appointment of former Irish president Mary Robinson as the new Special Envoy for the Great Lakes region of Africa.

Ms. Robinson, who served as president from 1990 to 1997, has more than four decades of political and diplomatic experience, including as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002.

The UN and human rights groups are warning of a rise in sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Earlier this month, a senior UN official said the organisation's peacekeeping mission in the country had threatened to stop supporting two Congolese army battalions unless soldiers accused of raping scores of women in an eastern town were prosecuted.

UN officials and activists expressed relief and delight over news that an agreement had been reached at this year's Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).

Greeted with cheers, the agreed outcome document of the 57th CSW, which was announced on Friday evening, was hailed as an "important step" to end violence against women and girls.

Former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, who became head of the U.N. agency promoting women's equality in July 2010, said Friday night that she is giving up the post and returning home, an announcement that comes amid widespread speculation she plans to run for president again this year.