General Women, Peace and Security

On one Sunday morning, Madam Mary Haruna and her two daughters went to a nearby church in Jos for their weekly devotion.

Few minutes into the service, however, Haruna and her children were killed in a suicide attack on the church that left several worshippers dead.

The following day, her father-in-law travelled from Kaduna to condole with the bereaved family members but he was killed in a fatal accident on his way to Jos.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Malawi's new President Joyce Banda and several other female present and former heads of state and government gathered in Washington Monday for a panel discussion on the challenges of international development, democracy and global security.

Throughout history, sexual assault has been used as a weapon of war, up to and including events under way in Syria. British Foreign Secretary William Hague said last week that up to 50,000 women were assaulted in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) during the 1990s conflict, while in Syria, security forces "are using rape against both men and women as a tool to spread fear among the opposition."

Here in Afghanistan, the United States is spending $2 billion dollars a week on war under the guise of improving Afghanistan.

In Chicago at the NATO summit, Hillary Clinton, Madeline Albright and several influential female leaders came together and publicly claimed an American and NATO troop presence in Afghanistan was warranted in order to continue to improve the security of women.

The government has kicked off efforts of Localizing the National Action Plan (LNAP) on Women, Peace and Security in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

From the very beginning of his administration, President Barack Obama has put women at the heart of United States foreign policy, says Melanne Verveer, the United States Ambassador-at-large for Global Women's Issues. And that is because the most pressing global problems cannot be solved without the participation of women.

“We were together in the forest when the fighting forced us to flee,” Mukakarimba said in tears, cradling her little boy to protect him from the lashing rain in this transit camp close to the Congolese border.

She was separated from her husband and a second child in the chaos sparked by the fighting between soldiers from the Democratic Republic of Congo's army and mutineers – who were until recently rebel soldiers.

The head of the United Nations entity mandated to promote gender equality today welcomed the increase in women's representation in Algeria's new parliament as a result of elections held last week, and stressed that it represented a step towards democratic reform and gender equality.

Female farmworkers across the United States are commonly sexually harassed and assaulted, in part because their immigration status makes them fearful of calling police, according to a report being released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch.

The survey by the international rights group mirrors two previous reports on the risks facing women and girls that had focused on California, where most of the nation's farmworkers reside.

The fate of a gender equality bill pending in Indonesia's parliament and aligned with the United Nations convention on the elimination of all forms discrimination against women (CEDAW) has become uncertain after falling afoul of powerful Islamist groups.