The number of women in the Angolan National Assembly repre sents 39 per cent of the total number of parliamentarians in the country and the figure meets the world's established quota, according to a report from the Angolan News Agency (ANGOP).

Human Rights Watch urged Kurdistan's government on Wednesday to ban genital cutting of women and girls, a practice the organization said is widespread and dangerous there, but which they said Kurdish officials had failed to move aggressively to stop.

Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Iyom Josephine Anenih has urged Nigerian women to see politics as a life and death affair.

The minister who was speaking at the national summit for participation in politics which began yesterday in Abuja noted that the forum was of special importance for all Nigerian women.

Bank Melli, one of Iran's biggest retail banks, opened the country's first women-only bank branch on Monday in Mashhad, allowing women to manage their finances without dealing with unrelated men — something likely to appeal to religious families who oppose mingling between the sexes. Under the Islamic legal system imposed after Iran's 1979 revolution, unrelated men and women are forbidden to have intimate contact.

Women in Russia's volatile Muslim Chechnya region said on Friday that police had targeted them with paintball pellets for not wearing headscarves, outraging rights activists.

The attacks highlight tension over efforts by Chechnya's firebrand Moscow-backed leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, to enforce Muslim-inspired rules that in some cases violate Russia's constitution.

A police officer serving with the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Liberia is giving a voice not only to women who have suffered from sexual violence, but also to the West African country's deaf people, thanks to her sign language skills.

The Women's Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry has expressed optimism that regional governments will step up efforts to encourage gender equality and empower women, amid cries from activists over discriminative bylaws enforced in several regions.

The stories coming from Burmese and ethnic minority women along the border with Thailand are difficult to listen to. A woman describes being gang-raped while pregnant. When she begged for mercy the first soldier raped her anyway “and slapped my face.” Then he threatened to harm her unborn baby. Then there were more soldiers, “one after another, up to four.”

UAMBA, 27 February 2003 (IRIN) - "I came here to the quartering area to try and find my husband, the father of my children," Celita Vasco says. "But when I arrived here I heard that my husband had died in the war. My children have no father." She indicates the baby on her lap: "The father of this child here, also went away.

Four female officers from the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force have returned to the country after participating in the 7th Annual Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police Women's Advisory Network (PICP WAN) conference recently held in Samoa.