Noa Raz, a young woman waiting to board a bus, was recently attacked by a man because her arm bore the imprints of tefillin straps, which Jewish men wrap around their arms during morning prayers.

"You're an abomination," the man shouted while kicking her.

“Kyrgyzstan would not have prosperity without women's support, Omurbek Tekebayev, deputy head of the interim government said Monday at the National Conference “Women political participation in constitutional reform and parliamentary elections”.

"Violence against women is not only domestic, it also happens in the streets. Not having the right to feel safe in a city square or at a bus stop without someone bothering us, that's also violence."

This "discovery," as she called it, was described to IPS by Ofelia Retamoso, who lives in the east-central Argentine city of Rosario, 300 km northwest of Buenos Aires.

Women who fled conflict and oppression in military-ruled Burma have become a potent political force during their lives in exile, says a leading women's rights activist from the South-east Asian country's Shan ethnic minority.Nothing confirms this more than the fact that the Women's League of Burma (WLB), a network of 13 women's groups in exile based in this northern Thai city, marked its 10th anniversary in December 2009.

A volunteer of the Advocacy Project (AP) has used the setting of a major UN meeting to denounce the horrific damage caused by gun violence against women and girls within families.

Speaking before diplomats at a panel event during the UN Commission on the Status of Women last week, Rebecca Gerome, 23, described her work as a peace fellow last summer with the Women's Peace Collective in the Colombian city of Cali:

About 150 representatives of civil society organizations from the member countries of the Organization of American States ( OAS ) today participated in a dialogue with Heads of Delegation that will attend the 40th OAS General Assembly from June 6 to 8 in Lima.

Human rights defenders are under attack in Serbia and the authorities are failing to protect them, Amnesty International said on Monday.

Over the past year women human rights activists have faced repeated attacks in the Serbian media including being threatened with lynching.

The motivation behind a new political party in Solomon Islands is to get more women into parliament.

It's the first party since independence in 1978 with a charter focusing on women's issues.

It's called the 'Twelve Pillars to Peace and Prosperity Party' or TP4.

However, membership is not restricted to women, anyone who identifies with the 12 pillars contained in the party's charter are welcome to join.

Successive governments of Bosnia and Herzegovina have failed to provide justice for thousands of women and girls who were raped during the 1992-1995 war, Amnesty International said in a report published on Wednesday.

2010 Annual Session

On Friday, 4 June, the final day of the UNICEF Executive Board's 2010 Annual Session, delegates were briefed on the progress of the organization's efforts to promote gender equality and heard Executive Director Anthony Lake reaffirm UNICEF's dedication to achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.