In the company of souls departed and souls vibrantly alive, Jessica Horn reflects on the significance of the lives of Nobel laureates Leymah Gbowee and the late Wangari Maathai, and the transgressive power of African women on a mission.

In Bajaur Agency, one of seven tribal areas in northwestern Pakistan, very few girls go to school due to threats by the Taliban.

Shortly before Christmas, President Obama issued an order creating a National Action Plan On Women, Peace and Security (NAP) which reads in part:

(a) The United States recognizes that promoting women's participation in conflict prevention, management, and resolution, as well as in post conflict relief and recovery, advances peace, national security, economic and social development, and international cooperation.

The Cambodian authorities must immediately release 24 women and six children detained yesterday while peacefully protesting their forced eviction.

"A dead rat is worth more than the body of a woman." Those were the words of one distraught young woman whom I met in Walikale in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 2010.

When President Obama introduced new legislation to combat domestic violence in October 2011, the U.S. administration promised a $25 million a year budget for programs that hope to bring domestic violence prevention organizations to the table along with recent $150 million dollar funded federal extension programs for Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Grants.

An International expert on Women's and Health Specialist has spoken out on the topic in the number of deaths occurring worldwide from maternal mortality. “It is a human rights violation because most countries in the world had signed to the United Nations declaration on the right to life,” says Ottowa, Canada based Dr. Andre Lalonde, former executive vice-president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada.

It's perhaps the only market in the world where all the vendors are women. Ima Keithal in Manipur's capital of Imphal (in the north eastern region of India on the border of Myanmar/Burma) is a tourists' paradise where women, sell everything from vegetables to beautiful hand spun shawls. But there's a bitter behind-the-scenes story here.

Some women groups marched through Abuja on Monday to demonstrate support for the fuel subsidy withdrawal by the Federal Government.
The women, including traders and members of the National Council of Women Societies (NCWS), pleaded with Nigerians to give President Goodluck Jonathan a chance.