In August of every year South Africa stages Gender Equality Month. Events are organised around National Women's Day on August 9. According to the ruling ANC, it "is a time to salute women for the role they have played and to reflect on challenges women continue to face".

A workshop to help rural communities know how to prevent violence against women is currently underway.

More than 30 women and men leaders from villages of Western, Malaita and Guadalcanal provinces are in Honiara this week.

The week long workshop aims to help these men and women understand the work of different organizations working to prevent violence against women.

The prominence of violent crime, especially murder and rape, in Namibia is a matter of grave concern to the Inspector General of the Namibian Police, Lieutenant General Sebastian Ndeitunga.

Securing justice for women faced with violence was the focus of a seminar held by The Organization of Americans States (OAS), of which The Bahamas is a member.

The OAS opened its "Human Rights, Violence Against Women and Access to Justice," seminar yesterday at OAS headquarters in Washington DC.

The First Lady, Patience Jonathan, on Monday in Abuja consulted with the wives of state governors on ways of facilitating peace in their domains.

Mrs Jonathan intimated the governors' wives on how she became the President of the African First Ladies Peace Mission (AFLPM) and informed them that they would be inaugurated as ambassadors for peace in their respective states.

Kenya has been praised for passing laws and policies that promote gender equality.
A new World Bank report on gender says the country has plugged the gap in the last two years, with women being given more opportunities for self-fulfilment.

The World Bank has commended the government for its efforts at creating an enabling environment for women to participate actively in socio-economic development.

Human rights activists are reporting an increased incidence of rape against Kachin women in areas of recent military attacks by government forces in northern Myanmar.

In Kachin State alone, at least 18 cases of rape - sometimes aggravated with murder - were documented over an eight-day period in June by the Kachin Women's Association of Thailand (KWAT), following renewed fighting between government and Kachin forces.

India ranks at 141 among 165 countries analyzed by Newsweek magazine in the treatment of women.

Ritual killings and human sacrifice happen in many, if not all countries in Africa. Cases have been reported in such countries as Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.