Guerda Benjamin from OFAT Haiti reports on how IANSA women are using a CEDAW Shadow Report to urge the government to take action to reduce and prevent gun violence against women.

The Fifth Congress of the Women's League of Burma was held in a liberated area near the Thai-Burma border from 15–17 January, 2009.

Miles away from the red zone, surrounded by the vibrant green of Ortinola, Maracas, women from 17 countries hosted a regional conference of their own last week. During the two days preceding the Fifth Summit of the Americas, the Women's Institute for Alternative Development (Winad), in conjunction with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), hosted "Women Talking with Women: Crime and Violence in the Caribbean".

Papua New Guinea has made the international news again with a horrific story to reinforce stereotypes about the country: sorcery, sex, and fire. On January 6, a group of men reportedly stripped a woman naked, bound her hands and feet, stuffed a cloth in her mouth, and burned her alive on a dumpsite. Rumor has it that she had "confessed" to having eaten a man's heart.

Since the Law on the Right of Women to a Life Free of Violence was passed in 2007, the number of denunciations of violence against women has tripled in Venezuela, as women become more aware of their rights and have more access to the courts.

No indigenous woman has ever held a seat in the Mexican Congress. But two of them, one belonging to the conservative ruling party and the other representing the leftwing opposition, are trying to change that in the July legislative elections.

Brothels in the petroleum port province of Esmeraldas provide an employment magnet for underage women. A significant number are lured into the work by a man they consider a romantic partner. Third of six on Ecuador's sex industry.

The clients start filing in shortly after lunch. Beer flows. Women lead them into tiny rooms. A young woman sits to the side, forlorn, making no effort to get their attention.

For Police Sub-inspectors Maria Fatima Martins and Daria Ximenes, finding a temporary shelter for victims and witnesses of domestic and sexual gender-based violence is part of their job. It is their way of dealing with the pressing need to shelter the victims and witnesses of homicide and sexual violence in the country.

Former female Maoist combatants in Nepal are facing a new fight - reintegrating into their communities and returning to civilian life, specialists say. Female combatants made up a sizable portion of the Maoist's military wing, the People's Liberation Army (PLA), with the party saying a third of the soldiers were women.

In the last 13 months, 12 of Mexico's 32 states have approved amendments to their state constitutions defining a fertilised human egg as a person with a right to legal protection, and seven other state parliaments are taking steps in the same direction.