General Women, Peace and Security

Colombia's president has approved a law that makes acts of sexual violence committed during the country's long-standing armed conflict crimes against humanity, but questions remain regarding how this legislation will be applied to the benefit of the victims.

I sat in the glittery closing plenary of last week's global summit to end sexual violence in conflict in London, tired, saddened and outraged. I listened, together with activists, governments and survivors, to the words of Britain's foreign secretary, William Hague. He played to the crowd.

The gender audit in peace building programme conducted in 10 districts from March-May 2014 states that the victims of decade-long insurgency are the least informed people about National Action Plan 1325.

The research states that out of 45 survivors/victims who were interviewed, only 17 were informed about t National Action Plan 1325 and that the key victims were least informed about it.

Senior UN human rights officials at a UN Human Rights Council event have called for immediate efforts to end caste-based rape and violence against women. The event, co-sponsored by Human Rights Watch, followed calls for action from human rights organizations and India's UN representative in response to the gang-rape and hanging of two girls in Uttar Pradesh May 27.

On Tuesday July, 15, 2014, two of the United Nations System Agencies, the Joint Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) and the UN Peacekeeping Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) in collaboration with the Government of Liberia (GOL) through the Ministry of Gender and Development (MOGD)-SGBV Joint Program launched a new campaignin Monrovia named: "Shining the Light on ending violence against women" and empowering them to remain free from HIV.

Millions of Afghans have cast their votes in a presidential run-off to elect a successor to Hamid Karzai, who has been in office since 2001.

Luanda — The Action Plan for the Implementation of the National Policy for Gender Equality and Equity (PNIEG) of the Ministry of Family and Women Promotion (Minfamu), approved in 2013, will promote greater gender equality in all sectors of the society.

A three-day training workshop on the monitoring and evaluation of United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 in West Africa, is underway in Accra.

The workshop, organized jointly by the Women, Peace and Security Institute (WPSI), and the West Africa Network for Peace building (WANEP), is being attended by 25 participants from Gender and Social Protection Ministries in 13 countries in the West Africa Sub-Region.

Anar Gul, 16, wept as she waited outside the Afghan ministry of women's affairs in Kabul with her parents. Swathed in a blue burka, she told the painful story of her marriage two months earlier in her home province of Bamian in central Afghanistan. Soon after the wedding, her husband began inviting other men to the house and charged them money to have sex with her.

A 100-page set of guidelines for the legal protection of the rights of women and children was launched by the Ministry of Women's Affairs in Phnom Penh on Thursday in a bid to address shortfalls in how the judicial system handles cases such as rape, domestic violence and sexual harassment.