In a major endorsement for investment in women – the bulk of food growers in the developing world – United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said food security could not be achieved without women, and that the world's hungry also needed leaders to prioritise actions.

Despite laws, resolutions, decrees, protocols, and directives against gender-based violence, women victims of sexual violence during armed conflict face tremendous challenges in seeking justice, including discrimination, stigmatization, and the inexistence of a holistic strategy to combat impunity in these cases.

Highlighting the role in women in producing much of the world's food and caring for the environment, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in his message marking the International Day of Rural Women, today said that eliminating discrimination that prevents rural women from realizing their full potential is crucial to ending global hunger and poverty.

Nobel Prize winner Shirin Ebadi spoke to Sophie Claudet last week on the sidelines of the Women's Forum in Deauville, France.

The lack of women's economic and political participation, and lack of women's education, kept Arab countries from developing properly, said US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues Melanne Verveer on the sidelines of the Women's Forum in Deauville, France. Then came the Arab Spring and “women were shoulder-to-shoulder with men in the revolutions.”

Many people erroneously view gender as 'women's presence'. Yet, the women's presence is just the beginning, not the end point. For example, it is indeed a landmark that Rwanda has the highest number of women in the national parliament in the world - 56.3 per cent. It sounds politically correct, if you like.

Based in Ambon, the provincial capital of Maluku and the site of the most severe violence between Christians and Muslims, the group was one of the earliest interreligious civil society associations that initiated meetings and activities across religious boundaries to quell conflict and pursue peace in the conflict zone.

The African Union Mission in Somalia Police component has officially began training security officers from the Somali police force. The two-week training course is being carried out at the General Kahiye Police Academy in Mogadishu where 30 male and 10 female officers will undergo intensive training on Criminal Investigation.

Relaxing in the beige-toned lobby of the Empire Hotel in Manhattan, a world away from her native Somalia, Dr. Deqo Mohamed is talking calmly about how she helped save thousands of people from getting bombed by terrorists.

The report adds that the FIRs of around 59 per cent of the cases in the province were not registered.

An overwhelming impunity granted to perpetrators of violence against women has led to a steady rise in the number of cases across Pakistan, the report says.