General Women, Peace and Security

The overall situation for minority groups in Kosovo is not good and conditions are particularly bad for girls and women, who often don't have access to basic education or health care. These are the findings of a report published by The Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation's partner organisation Network of Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian women's organizations in Kosovo, NRAEWOK.

We would like to share the following open letter to newly elected Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. The letter, penned by WILPF Australia, Young WILPF Australia and the Women Peace and Security Academic Collective, encourages the Australian government to lead the charge in advocating for the country's Women, Peace and Security Agenda.

Cc Honourable Minister of Foreign Affairs Bob Carr
Dear Hon. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd,

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today announced the appointment of Ms. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka from South Africa as the new Executive Director of UN Women, the organization leading UN's work on advancing gender equality and women's rights.

Since the early 1990s, an active civil society campaign has been promoting the negotiation of a robust, comprehensive, legally-binding treaty to establish standards and restrictions on the international trade in conventional arms. After a seven year process at the United Nations, the treaty text was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 2 April 2013.

Brief history of the UN process

Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai has addressed the United Nations as part of her campaign to ensure free compulsory education for every child.

She marked her 16th birthday by delivering the speech on Friday at the UN headquarters in New York.

Taliban gunmen shot Malala on her school bus last October following her campaign for girls' rights.

South Sudan became the world's newest country on 9 July 2011 after decades of civil war and conflict. Women played a strong role in the popular referendum that resulted in the nation's independence from Sudan. Yet, the consequences of war – which disproportionately affected South Sudan's women, leaving many of them illiterate, impoverished and widowed – linger now, even though peace has come.

Today we mark the anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide and offer our thoughts and prayers to the victims and their families. The events that took place on this day 18 years ago began a chain of events that led to the deaths of over 8,000 men and boys and the forced removal of 30,000 women and girls.

Press Release-- UNICEF

Today, as Pacific countries gather to plan the “future we want,” UN agencies and partners from across the region are calling for children, youth and women to be at the heart of sustainable development.

It is with dismay that Women's International League for Peace and Freedom's project “MENA Agenda 1325″ learns of escalating attacks on women protesters in Egypt's Tahrir Square. Reports by our Egyptian partners and Human Rights Watch indicate growing levels of extreme sexual violence against women who have taken to the streets alongside men protesting for democracy and justice in Egypt.

The World Health Organisation recently trained the spotlight on gender-based violence, particularly in Africa, where almost half of all women will experience physical or sexual assault in their lifetime.