Participation

Catherine Ashton may have struck a blow for gender equality last year when she was appointed the European Union's foreign affairs chief, but she came under fire Wednesday for naming only seven women among 28 new diplomats for the international organization.

Greens lawmakers in the European Parliament dismissed Ashton's first batch of appointments to her fledgling diplomatic service as "an old boys club."

Two women are expected to bring a breath of fresh air to the International Court of Justice. Mrs Xue Hanqin from China and Mrs Joan Donoghue from the US replace Judge Shi Jiuyong and Judge Thomas Buergenthal who both resigned before their terms expired. The women come to an ICJ that has been predominantly the bastion of men.

Political participation of women has changed since 2005 when Uganda, under donor pressure, opened political space to allow political parties in a country that had been largely a one-party state. With these new political changes, more women found space to engage in politics.

In the presence of H.R.H Princess Astrid of Belgium, Catherine Ashton, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice President of the European Commission, and Steven Vanackere, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belgium, co-hosted a high-level conference at the Palais d'Egmont in Brussels today to mark the tenth anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women's Participation in Peace and Sec

Parliament – Juba Female members of Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly are up in arms against an alleged women under-representation in the distribution of chairs of the assembly's 17 Standing Specialized committees.

Are sex strikes slowly but surely becoming a new form of political strategy? This is the question which comes to mind on reading about the declaration of a group of Nigerian women based abroad.

Ashgabat, 13 September 2010 – More than 160 officials from Turkmen governmental institutions and public associations at the local level enhanced their knowledge about the UN human rights system in a series of workshops in all five regions of Turkmenistan from 17 to 28 August 2010.

APA-Harare (Zimbabwe) The Women's Coalition of Zimbabwe said Monday that fewer females than males are participating in an ongoing exercise to gather public views on the proposed Constitution and warned that women risked having their concerns left out of the new charter.

According to the coalition, women comprise only 38 percent of overall attendances during the constitutional outreach programme that started in June.

When Shahrzad Kariman finally saw her imprisoned daughter Shiva Nazar Ahari earlier this month, it was for a brief moment outside the Tehran courtroom where the 26-year-old human rights campaigner had been brought. "We could see her for a few minutes," Kariman told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran last week. "Just enough to hug her.

RENK - South Sudan Women Empowerment Network, a body that works to enlighten women on political, economic, social, and traditional matters, has on Friday concluded three days workshop in the southern state of Northern Bahr el Ghazal.