The women of Afghanistan are amazing. Despite decades of continuous warfare, they remain determined to build a society based on equal rights. They are, ultimately, the best hope for peace in the region.

Let's blame men. Many of us do—many women and even men blame men for the mass rape of women in war. It's easy to point our fingers and name the perpetrator. But what if we were to step back and ask how men can actually be part of the solution? It requires a couple of basic assumptions.

Even war is safer than this.

Imagine it: Your family attacked. Your house teeming with soldiers. Your options running out. A protected area for victims of war sounds like a wise place to flee. But as too many women and girls have discovered, conflict itself can seem relatively calm once the violence of refugee life begins.

The news of the day was that Democratic representatives walked out of a hearing on “religious liberty and birth control.” Republicans had blocked the testimony of a woman who wanted to speak in favor of the Obama administration's compromise on birth control. But the Republicans allowed representatives, men, from conservative religious organizations to testify.

In 2008, the Guatemalan parliament passed a law against ‘femicide' (even though it's a word you won't find in a dictionary) as well as against other forms of violence towards women.

The 36 year long civil war (1960-1996) that ravaged Guatemala, left more than 200,000 people dead and at least 100,000 women raped: most of the victims were Mayan. Only recently have women started speaking out about the violence they suffered in hands of the Army and paramilitaries, and finally, the sexual violence perpetrated against Mayan women is being investigated as part of the genocide proceedings taking place in Spanish tribunals.

Sheikh Fu'ad Mohamed Khalaf Shongole, the chief of awareness raising of al-Shabaab, the radical Islamist group opposing the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, has insisted that unmarried girls should join the Jihad (holy war) against the pro-government forces.

In a dimly lit tent in Yemen's Change Square, Nobel peace laureate Tawakkul Karman has laid out a blueprint of her country's future: a modern state with equality and rule of law.

The Cali workshop was conducted in the Semi-rural town of Palmira in the department of Valle del Cauca on Wednesday, February 8th.

If the first casualty of war is truth, the second is often women. Years of conflict in Fata have been no different. The systematic dismantling of educational opportunities for women has perhaps had more of a long-term impact than direct violence.