General Women, Peace and Security

The National Security Coordinator (NSCOORD), Retired Brigadier Mustapha M.K. Dumbuya has said that gender equality within the security sector is a high priority for the security sector and therefore called on Women in Security Sector-Sierra Leone (WISS-SL) to capacitate and position themselves, in order to occupy strategic positions in the sector.

UN Women is set to launch a five-year programme on social stabilisation and reconstruction.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Programme Specialist Fehmida Iqbal said that the plan was aimed at ensuring institutional accountability and facilitating women by giving them a forum to voice their demands.

As dusk enveloped the salmon-pink houses of this capital city, the brightly colored robes of women stood out in a mass of protesters chanting for independence from Moroccan rule.

The Police lack necessary to handle gender-related issues, Justice David Batema, has said.

Speaking at the female judges' conference at Protea Hotel in Kampala, Batema said member states in the Great Lakes region were asked to develop a police training curriculum on gender and violence so as to enable officers acquire skills in dealing with gender-related cases.

The Minister of Social Welfare, Gender and Children's Affairs, Hon. Moijue Kaikai has called on women at community level to put hands on deck and collaboratively alert the police and his ministry on issues bordering on sexual and domestic violence so that the perpetrators would be brought to book.

The South Asia Women's Network (SWAN) found an opportunity to hold a Strategic Planning Workshop in Male (Maldives), and witness firsthand claims by scientists that the waters surrounding the Maldives have risen significantly, and that the island may disappear in less than 200 years.

It is over a week since Ruth Flomo was last able to walk, the bullet lodged in her leg an agonising reminder of the terror of being shot in crossfire during Liberia's bloody civil war 10 years ago.

Flomo, then just a teenager, was caught in an exchange of fire between the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy and troops loyal to ex-president Charles Taylor as the conflict was nearing an end in 2003.

Women activists from various groups in Sierra Leone, including the Parliamentary Female Caucus, 50/50 Group and Campaign for Good Governance (CGG), among others, have ended a one-day consultative conference on the constitutional review process and how they could speak with one voice in championing the welfare of women in the country.

President Dr Joyce Banda will leave the country on June 26 for Abuja Nigeria where she is expected to attend a High Level Global Women Network on 27 and 28 June 2013.

According to press release from the State House authored by Presidential Press Secretary Steve Nhlane, the President will depart through the Kamuzu International Airport in Lilongwe at 09:00 hours in the morning.

The hot and damp jungles of southern Colombia have been torn apart by war for more than 20 years. One of the most devastating and widely used weapons in the bloody struggle for power over this fertile and oil-rich land – once one of the biggest cocaine-producing regions in the world – is sexual violence against women.