President of the 50/50 Group of Sierra Leone Tuesday said they are currently in the process of building the first Gender and Women's Leadership Training Institute in West Africa.

Edna seemed shy, rounding her shoulders protectively over her baby. She was breastfeeding, and I could see the burn scars on the top of her head. Despite her initial self-consciousness, she told us her story, starting with the fire that led to her blindness.

The few women's crisis centres that exist in Kyrgyzstan are finding it hard to carry on as the international donor support they rely on is drying up.

In the absence of domestic charity fundraising opportunities, the best hope seems to lie in applying for state funding.

Forty-six African governments have signed the Maputo Protocol, properly known as the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on Women in Africa.

The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa was adopted in 2003, entered into force in 2005, and has to date been ratified by 29 African states.[1] Provided States fulfill their obligations under the protocol, it has the potential to play a key role within the human rights framework designed to address gender inequality and advance women's rights in Africa.

It is five years since the African Union (AU) Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa entered into force on November 25, 2005. To date, over fifty per cent of AU member states (29)[1] have ratified it. That day is significant to women worldwide as it also marks the start of the 16 Days of Activism against Violence against Women.

A top Saudi cleric challenged a ban on women driving on Tuesday, saying women should be allowed more social participation in the puritanical Islamic state.

Saudi Arabia is a monarchy ruled by Al Saud family in alliance with clerics from the strict Wahhabi school of Islam. Women must be covered from head to toe and are not allowed to drive.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has been operational since 2002, yet victims of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide are still awaiting the court's first judgment.

The court as a whole has been hammered most recently for its slowness, for missteps in its first trial--the Lubanga case, and for not always showing gender sensitivity or, arguably, even gender competence in a few instances.

The Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE), Rwanda Chapter, would like to have additional policies and continued advocacy in order to further boost girls' education in the country.

This was said, yesterday, during FAWE's annual General Assembly, where the organisation's members received the 2009-2010 report and discussed plans for the following year.

The World Medical Association today added its support to worldwide calls for an immediate inquiry into allegations that more than 700 women, men and children were raped when Angola recently expelled thousands of people back to the Democratic Republic of Congo. These atrocities add to the widespread and systematic nature of rape and other human rights violations in the Congo by rebels.