Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is calling on all parties to the conflict in Mogadishu, Somali to take all measures to minimize civilian casualties and to respect the protected status of medical facilities.

The United Nations is trying to put sexual violence on the international policy map, telling political and military leaders that wartime mass rape "is no more inevitable than, or acceptable than, mass murder."

What does the financial reform package recently signed into law in the US have to do with preventing mass rape in Africa? Quite a lot, it seems, but one has to search deeply within the 2,300-page document to find Section 1502, which focuses on "conflict minerals". Conflict minerals help finance fighting and sexual violence on an unprecedented scale in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

For a young Pacific girl born in the 70s, Pacific women were much more likely to be cleaning the parliamentary loos than sitting on the benches.

But in 1999, when Winnie Laban became the first Pacific woman MP in New Zealand, it dawned on me that the ads I had seen on telly that said "Girls can do anything" also included me, even if I was a Pacific Islander.

Namibia's First Lady has called on Namibian women to come together and put robust effort in place to deal with domestic and sexual violence.

Penehupifo Pohamba indicated that women need to stand together to ensure perpetrators of violence against women and vulnerable people are brought to book.

The photo of Bibi Aisha, a 19-year-old Afghan woman, on the cover of Time magazine last week is unforgettable. Her eyes are betrayed and defiant. Her mouth is curled in a frown. Her nose isn't there, a scarred gap in its place.

It was hacked off by a Taliban fighter who married her at the age of 12, when she reached puberty, then punished her for fleeing his abuse.

The revelation by SADC Gender Programme's head Ms. Magdeline Mathiba-Madibela at a press briefing in Windhoek this week ahead of the SADC Heads of States Summit, that HIV and AIDS disproportionately affects Southern African women and girls as a result of sexually-related-violence and unequal gender relations is not only worrying but a great challenge to the sub-region's governments and human development efforts.

'Deaths caused by pregnancy in Africa are more than all the deaths from AIDS, TB and malaria combined,' says Marie-Claire Faray. Faray, the vice president of UK WILPF (Women's' International League for Peace and Freedom), is speaking to a group of women from all over the diaspora who have gathered in London to mark the UK launch of African Women's Decade.

When Jogorku Kenesh, the Kyrgyz parliament, convened in 2005, it had no female members. Only one member of the cabinet of ministers was a woman. The paucity of women in decision-making positions contributed to difficulties in achieving gender equality in the conservative Kyrgyz tradition.

The United Nations is trying to put sexual violence on the international policy map, telling political and military leaders that wartime mass rape "is no more inevitable than, or acceptable than, mass murder."