The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) is very encouraged by the UN Security Council's intention to take action on a comprehensive set of indicators on the implementation of its resolution 1325 on women, peace and security, by October 2010, the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Security Council resolution 1325.

A leading member of the women's group of the Rumbek State legislature in southern Sudan says there was a large turnout of women during Sudan's general elections.

Adak Costa Mapuor said it demonstrates their commitment towards entrenching democratic reforms. She said a constitutional provision that reserves 25% of all political positions for women is a significant boost to women's participation in making public policy.

UNITED Nations Development Programme staff participated in a knowledge-sharing forum on the role of women in peace and security.

UNDP communications associate Reama Biumaiono said the initiative was an effort to enhance knowledge sharing among colleagues.

Fresh from her visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which she described as the “rape capital of the world,” a senior United Nations official today urged the Security Council to make the prevention of sexual violence a top priority, and stressed the need to end impunity for the scourge.

Women's rights organizations welcome UNSC support on the implementation of a United Nations Resolution which will take action on indicators which assess and address the impact of war upon women and which stress the need to include women in the peace-building process and the resolution of conflicts and crises.

MICHEL MARTIN, host:

I'm Michel Martin, and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News.

The eastern DRC has become synonymous with war and rape. In recent years, various rebel groups have attacked and looted villages, driving civilians into the bush to escape. Attempts by government forces and U.N. troops to defeat them have often made matters worse for civilians, as militias launch retaliatory strikes against villagers. But many aid groups working in the region have blamed all warring parties for attacks on civilians.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is "the rape capital of the world", a senior UN official has said.

Margot Wallstrom, the UN's special representative on sexual violence in conflict, urged the Security Council to punish the perpetrators in DR Congo.

Rape remained a dominant feature of the ongoing conflict in eastern DR Congo, with impunity being the rule rather than the exception, she said.

Without fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged "immodest."

As his plane cut through the clouds above eastern Congo on Friday, John Holmes, the United Nations' top humanitarian official, looked down pensively at the miles and miles of thick forest covering one of the most chronically afflicted parts of Africa, if not the world.

“It's hard not to despair about Congo,” he said.