General Women, Peace and Security

Since the Seneca Falls Convention launched the women's rights movement in the United States 166 years ago, wise men have aided women in their pursuit of legal and economic inclusion.

Africa will celebrate on 31 July the African Women?s Day, which was declared by the African Union after the first Pan-African Women's Conference in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1962.

This important date honours the achievements of all African women, and offers a space to reflect on progress towards the recognition of women's rights and gender equality at the political, economic and social level in all the countries of Africa.

For years women in Mogadishu have been on the side-lines in the fight against al-Shabaab, but more recently they have begun to play a more active role by providing critical information about suspicious activity and people to security agencies, officials told Sabahi.

The Convention on the Elimination of Violence against Women is still missing, but progress on other dimensions of this issue has taken place rapidly since the early 1990s and also as part of implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action. The UN Security Council has expressed its views strongly and effectively on this issue for the first time in its history.

The UN says militant Islamist group Isis has ordered all women and girls in Mosul, northern Iraq, to undergo female genital mutilation (FGM).

UN official Jacqueline Badcock said the fatwa, or religious edict, applied to females between the ages of 11 and 46.

She said the unprecedented decree issued by the Islamists in control of the city was of grave concern.

The program of listening to problems facing women in the rural areas, opened this year by the government, indicates the promotion of human rights in the country.

This was said by the State secretary of Justice and Human Rights, António Bento Bembe, while speaking on Monday to journalists in central Huambo province, where he started a three-day visit in order to assess the functioning of the sector.

More women should play instrumental roles in determining the country's defense and diplomatic policies, MKs said at a joint meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women.

A court in Egypt has sentenced seven men to life in prison and two others to 20 years for sexual assaulting women last month.

The women were attacked in Cairo during celebrations following the election of President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi.

Afterwards, Mr Sisi ordered officials to enforce a new law making sexual assault a crime for the first time.

Prominent women-leaders from the Central-West region of Western province excelled to greater heights in knowledge and understanding of their roles and responsibilities in building and maintaining peace in the province, after attending a time-bound, extremely informative, emotional but fun, hope-filled and commitment-setting peace-building conference early last month.

Conflict Resolution Unit will lead the development of Ireland's Second National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security.

To help inform the development of Ireland's Second National Action Plan, Conflict Resolution Unit is issuing an open invitation for submissions to this consultation document.