You will find Beauty Kasonda on her campaign trail at funerals, weddings, church functions or just about any local gathering in her community. Kasonda does not have the sort of funding her male counterparts have for campaigning in the country's November 2010 elections but she is not letting that stop her.

The Protocol of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) about gender and development, was approved on Tuesday, with 179 positive votes, none against and none abstention, by the Angolan MPs, during the second extraordinary session of the National Assembly.

NEARLY one out of every seven victims whose rape was reported by the Namibian Police in its daily crime bulletins last year was ten years or younger.

They beat the odds as leaders, innovators, and achievers in their own world of business. Their entrepreneurial energies in developing economic empowerment in a gradual manner have enabled them to make tremendous contributions toward the sustaining of Liberia's economic progress. Their endless strives for economic growth and development, coupled with their performances along this line, are equally noteworthy.

Sporting a long blue dress and white headscarf, Umm Omar barely blinks as she whips out a pistol in her garden. For her, the gun is a necessary evil to protect her young family. "I hate the sound of gunfire, but it is the terrorists who have forced me to learn to handle a gun to protect my children and my home," the 27-year-old mother of three says almost matter-of-factly, while deftly handling the weapon.

Every morning the two girls wake up before dawn, row their wooden skiff out into Gaza's heavily-patrolled waters, and try to catch enough fish to feed their family. They are perhaps the only women in the territory of 1.5 million people who make a living from fishing, and are a rare sight in Gaza's conservative society where women rarely venture into the sea even to swim.

The Human Rights Committee concluded its ninety-ninth session today, during which it considered and adopted concluding observations and recommendations on the reports submitted by Cameroon, Colombia, Estonia and Israel on how those countries implement the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The leader of a Solomon Islands women's organisation says a number of strong women are standing in next month's election, and there is hope four or five could make it to parliament.

25 of the 509 candidates running in next month's election are women, down slightly from the 26 who stood in 2006.

Several female politicians have expressed disappointment that more women are not standing in the August 4 election.

Women getting into Parliament this election do not mean they won't face challenges since in our culture, men dominate in leadership position.

Audrey Manu National Coordinator for Gender Equality and Political Governance Program of the United Nation Fund for Women (UNIFEM) told journalist at a press conference on Tuesday.

The Solomon Islands government defied and agreement signed with the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (United Nations CEDAW) when they refuse to allow women 10 temporary seats in parliament.