Asia

After conducting research in five main Afghan provinces – Kabul, Badakhshan, Nangarhar, Balkh, Herat – the group found that women have not been involved in the decision-making processes of the High Peace Council at the provincial and their role is only representative.

Globally, 139 constitutions include guarantees of gender equality, 125 countries outlaw domestic violence. Yet the rule of law often rules women out, and the implementation of laws lag behind.

“By 30 September the camp will be empty,” Minister of Resettlement Gunaratne Weerakoon told IRIN in Colombo, noting that the final group of 1,185 IDPs would be resettled in their places of origin next week.

Hard living conditions for Syrian refugees in Libya are forcing some families to marry off their daughters to wealthy local men. Syrians say Libyans often knock at their doors asking for especially underage girls, as BBC Arabic's Ahmed Maher reports from Benghazi.

Ahmed Atrash is among hundreds of Syrian refugees in the country's second largest city, Benghazi. He and his family have fled the raging war back home.

The Afghan Ministry of Justice has registered 84 political parties since a new law took effect in September 2009, according to ministry official Hakim Wardak. Another 12 are in the process of registering, he added.

“In the beginning, political circles were reluctant to form or register a political party, but now the trend has changed significantly,” Wardak told Central Asia Online.

The United Nations Integrated Mission (UNMIT) in Timor-Leste began in 2006 after a mutiny by soldiers and a breakdown of order led the government to request international support.In terms of the mission's Joint Transition Plan, UNMIT will withdraw if the parliamentary elections are conducted in line with international standards and without major violence. Two rounds of presidential elections in March and April both took place peacefully.

The punishment that she and other women in her position received is hard to justify, or even discuss, she says. “We were abused by Indonesian soldiers in every way.”

Many Solomon Islands women slum dwellers have to walk at least a kilometre a day carrying heavy loads of water back to their families – and risk running the gauntlet with young male predators, according to a new human rights report.

The research says on these journeys women are continually harassed, attacked and raped.

Globally, women hold slightly less than 20 per cent of seats in parliament. In Asia-Pacific, just over 18 percent of all members of national parliaments are women. Women's representation in the Pacific, excluding Australia and New Zealand, is the lowest in the world, lagging behind the Arab region. On average, women are less than 10 per cent of ministers in Asia-Pacific, according to the UNDP study.

"I wept through the journey from my village to Jalozai. I never wanted to leave my home. I thought I would go back in 20 days. It has now been a year," she said, sitting in the courtyard of a makeshift tent compound.

Bibi is one of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Pakistanis who have fled fighting between insurgent groups and the Pakistan military in the Khyber Agency bordering Afghanistan.