After filing the first-ever class-action lawsuit on the issue of gender segregation in Israel, a local religious women's rights group says it hopes to protect the rights of women in the public sphere of Israeli society.

UN Women has donated US $3 million to the Sirleaf Market Women's Fund (SMWF) for the construction of eight markets in Liberia. The new venues will feature a bank, nursery school, warehouse, and adult literacy school.

A technical team from the UNHRC office in Geneva on the advice of HR High Commissioner Navi Pillay will arrive in the country on September 14, External Affairs Ministry officials have said.

The Minister at a press briefing today said that at first a delegation representing the UN Human Rights High Commissioner Navi Pillay would visit the island prior to her visit.

“The lack of women's representation – of women's empowerment – affects individual women's rights – and it holds back whole countries,” Mr. Ban told participants at the first World Congress of Global Partnership for Young Women and Second Global Partnership Forum in Seoul, Republic of Korea (ROK).

Talking to APP, he said reservation of four seats for minorities in the Senate and work on 'Minorities Protection Bill' to protect the Personal Laws of Minorities including legislation on Hindu, Sikh, Parsi and Bahai Marriage Acts were among important initiatives of the government.

“A few years ago, our people, the people you can see around you, we began to realize what was happening,” Maudilia López told the hundreds gathered to attend the first ever People's Health Tribunal in San Miguel Ixtahuacán, Guatemala. The event was packed, even as some attendees spilled out of the entrance of the crowded room, others shuffled to find a spot.

Although the federal government's fiscal year doesn't end until Sept. 30, the Department of Homeland Security has already reached the annual 10,000 limit on special visas for undocumented immigrants who are victims of domestic violence and sexual assaults and who also assist in investigations or prosecutions. This is the third consecutive time that the cap has been reached, and the earliest.

When U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addresses the High-Level Forum on Culture of Peace later this week, he will transmit a message that underlines his political philosophy: all disputes need to be resolved by peaceful means, not through military might.

Two U.S. government agencies, the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development, recently issued detailed implementation plans to carry forward the U.S. National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security.

UNP parliamentarian Rosy Senanayake says the bill while safeguarding women and child rights would also introduce sever punishments for child abusers and rapists.

She said that immediate steps needed to be taken to address the increasing cases of child abuse and rape of women.

The MP explained that laws related to such offenses have to be amended and strengthened.