On December 19 2012, President Obama released the first-ever U.S. National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security, and signed an Executive Order directing the Plan be implemented across the government. CDC works consistently to protect the health of women and girls throughout the world, including countries affected by conflict and disaster.

Today, the government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) insurgency group meet in Oslo, Norway, to begin deliberations aimed at concluding a 48-year civil war. The Colombian armed conflict has resulted in the estimated deaths of around 100,000 people, forcibly displaced more than 5 million people, and produced as many forced disappearances as the most egregious cases in Latin America.

Fifteen brave Guatemalan women from the indigenous q'eqchí people testified before the High Risk Court in Guatemala City on Sept. 24-28, as part of the first criminal trial for sexual slavery and rape during the armed conflict.

“As daunting as the road ahead is, I do not think eradicating sexual violence in conflict is a mission impossible,” the Secretary-General's Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Zainab Bangura, told reporters in Geneva.

Afghan women's safety activists say a new partnership with religious leaders can help stop Taliban attacks on girls and women that have left a Pakistani teen activist for girls just across the border in Swat Province undergoing brain surgery after a gunshot execution.

Activists said the provincial government should appoint an ombudsperson to redress women's complaints against harassment and discrimination at the workplace, as required by the anti-sexual harassment law. The appointment was first suggested in the Sexual Harassment Bill 2010.

In Kyrgyzstan, someone who steals a cow could go to prison for up to 11 years. But men who kidnap underage girls and force them into marriage run little risk of prosecution -- although current legislation does provide for a three-year sentence.

That may be about to change -- at least a little bit.

In the latest incident, an 18-year-old identified only as Najibullah was arrested on October 13 in connection with the gruesome torture and beheading two days earlier of a woman in the western city of Herat, near the border with Iran.

Mahgul, a 25-year-old newlywed, was found dead outside her home by her family, who then carried her mutilated body to the local Department for Women's Affairs to raise awareness of her killing.

A police officer in Karachi beats up his wife at the slightest provocation. She is badly bruised but has no way of seeking relief. This is a story heard in every third household in Pakistan.