For sustainable solution to existing security situation faced by the country due to ongoing conflict at western borders, it is vital to involve women at all levels of reconciliation and rehabilitation process.

Thousands of Nigerian women dressed in black and carrying Bibles, wooden crosses, pictures of victims, and branches symbolizing peace marched in a central Nigerian state on Thursday to protest the massacre of about 500 villagers, who were mostly women and children.

The Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Côte d'Ivoire, Y. J. Choi, on Wednesday, underlined the central role which should be entrusted to women in the Ivorian electoral process.

Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development Iyom Josephine Anenih said women are being excluded from conflict prevention and gender-based early warning indicators are largely ignored.

She said this at the commemoration of the 2010 International Women's Day for Peace and Disarmament in Abuja over the weekend.

Obama earlier this week signed the most widely co-sponsored Africa-specific law in U.S. history. Supporters hope it will defend women in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and Sudan from further atrocities.

UNAMID's Gender Advisory Unit has began mobilizing women representatives in North Darfur Civil Society organizations to participate in the preparatory meeting for the upcoming open day on the 10th Anniversary of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, which falls on 7 June.

A village leader and woman farmer, Bakhtawar knows all too well about the problems facing farmers in the southeastern Sindh province. Dry weather over the past two years has driven up food prices to levels millions of people can no longer afford. But instead of growing more, farmers are growing less because the costs of seed and fertilizer have shot up as well.

Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro today appealed to the media to take on the cause of gender equality, spotlighting it potential to overturn stereotypes of men and women.

“More is needed to make the media environment and industry more inclusive and gender-sensitive,” she stressed in remarks in Baku, Azerbaijan, to a conference of ministers from the Council of Europe responsible for equality between men and women.

Three years ago, a massive survey supported by UNICEF and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed an alarming level of sexual and physical abuse affecting girls in Swaziland. As many as one in three girls surveyed reported a history of abuse.