A white sheet covers another victim of Guatemala City's violence in District 16.

Jocelyn was shot dead while walking home. She was only 17-years-old. Her family has no idea why she was killed.

Her murder, like so many others in this country, will probably remain unpunished.

The savage methods being used by street gangs in their fight against each other are now being used against women.

Two female parliamen- tarians in Ghana reflect on how much harder it is for women to win political campaigns than be appointed to office. Money, inexperience and social bias can all stand in the way.

Lack of confidence, minimum grasp of universal social etiquette and lack of access to credible role models for the Nigerian female folks are reasons why Nigerian women have not prospered in politics, C&M Training, a Nigerian group in the Diaspora with headquarters in London has said.

The arrival of women at top positions in Ghana's government and security forces has highlighted the question of whether such milestones will translate into concrete benefits in women's lives.

For many, the greatest boost not only for women but for all Ghanaians would come from empowering women economically.

Claudia was 13 years old when she came to the capital of Paraguay from her small rural town. Just a few weeks after her arrival she was wandering the streets of downtown Asunción, a victim of sexual exploitation.

Sexual violence has become increasingly pervasive in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo where civilian rape has risen 17-fold in the past few years, says a report released today by Oxfam.

Global & national media are ignoring the growing intensity of sexual aggression and torture of women demonstrators in Honduras after the military coup d'etat & and violent repression, according to Honduran feminists and activists.

"Femicide," or gender-based murder, has reached epidemic proportions in Guatemala. But at least for Rosmery González - one of the more than 700 Guatemalan victims of this crime in 2008 - justice is finally being done with the arrest of her alleged killer earlier this month.

In Colombia, women who are heads of households are more likely to be vulnerable due to the increased level of discrimination they face in the workplace and their lack of access to education, skills training, and employment opportunities, says the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA).

The judgment issued today by the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) finding three senior members of Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front (RUF) guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including rape and other sexual crimes, is a positive, but still insufficient, step in the fight against impunity in that country, said Amnesty International.