Jacob Zuma was inaugurated as the new president of South Africa on 9 May, with his party, the African National Congress, having achieved a resounding victory in the recent elections. In what has been described as the most competitive election yet to take place in a post-apartheid South Africa, the ANC and Mr. Zuma clearly retain the support and trust of the vast majority of voters, men and women.

In 1956, twenty thousand women marched to parliament to protest discriminatory pass laws. The march, commemorated as Women's Day in South Africa on Aug. 9 each year, has become iconic of women's quest for equality.

A democratic constitution has replaced apartheid laws, but the reality on the ground suggests freedom and equality for all has not yet been attained.

Bad news for women: of the eight women running for mayor in Mozambique's municipal elections held on Nov. 19, only three won. Overall, 114 candidates ran for mayor in 43 municipalities.

The three winners - Rita Muianga, in Xai-Xai, Gaza province, Maria Helena Langa, in Mandlakazi, also in Gaza, and Marta Romeu, in Marrupa, Niassa province - belong to the ruling party Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo).

It is no longer unusual to see Moroccan women working in various professions in defiance of a set of traditions and societal customs that dictate that some jobs are not suited to them. The sight of women serving in a coffee shop or guarding a parking lot, which was previously rare or even prohibited, is now common.

Terrorism and Afghan insurgency have so overshadowed other issues in Pakistan that it sometimes feels like we -- common Pakistanis -- have no other issues. Take, for example, women rights. Here I am not insinuating feminism or related issues. We are still stuck at basics in this country.

"Even now, I can't find the words to explain the kinds of horrors that are happening,” wrote Nurjan Tulegabylova with El Agartuu, a women's organization based in Kyrgyzstan. “There are burned houses, but the worst is that corpses of people are lying on the street.”

The ink was barely dry on the power-sharing agreement signed by Zimbabwe's main political parties on Sep. 15 when women activists demanded a fair share of power.

According to the Zimbabwe Rape Survivors Association, during last year's highly contested presidential election an estimated 2,000 women and girls were the targets of politically-motivated sexual violence in Zimbabwe.

Jean-Michel Tijerina, CEO and Founder of the Cambodia Project, insisted I must meet her.

After an hour over coffee, I fully comprehended why.

I was talking to the Cory Aquino or the Aung San Suu Kyi - of Cambodia.

And given her courageous outspokenness, I am now very concerned for her safety.

The CIA's top officer in Algeria has been returned to Washington amid allegations that he drugged and raped two women at his Algiers residence, an accusation that presents the Obama administration's new intelligence team with an unexpected legal and diplomatic crisis even before it officially takes office.