A national centre which will conduct research and publish information, statistics and documentation on Gender Based Violence (CBV) has been established.

The move follows the country's plan as well as call by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO) in 2003 to member states in the Great Lakes region to strengthen action in favour of women and children living in conflict zones.

In El Salvador in 1930, the first female president in all of Latin America was elected. Her name was Prudencia Ayala and she led the way in history to proclaim the equality of rights. Twenty years after that declaration, the government, in 1950, granted full equality for both sexes in El Salvador.

Yet, equality hasn't brought peace to the women of El Salvador.

Internally displaced women in Colombia are organizing themselves to secure their rights to housing, education and health care. But along with this come threats, violence and dissatisfied husbands. Is it worth it?

The girl's voice dropped to a hush as she remembered the bright, sunny afternoon when she stepped out of her hut and saw her best friend buried in the sand, up to her neck.

Her friend had made the mistake of refusing to marry a Shabab commander. Now she was about to get her head bashed in, rock by rock.

The relentless wave of femicides in Guatemala, which has one of the highest female murder rates in the world, has prompted actions by the government, civil society groups, and two Nobel Peace laureates to try to put a stop to this brutal violence against women, which has reached horrific proportions.

The girl's voice dropped to a hush as she remembered the bright, sunny afternoon when she stepped out of her hut and saw her best friend buried in the sand, up to her neck.

Her friend had made the mistake of refusing to marry a Shabab commander. Now she was about to get her head bashed in, rock by rock.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is a joint Nobel Peace Prize winner as a champion for women's rights, whose steely nerves have been tested at the helm of a deeply divided post-war Liberia.

Africa's first elected female president has won a second term in office, and the 73-year-old grandmother's task is not getting any easier as a disputed election showed her country remains polarised.