General Women, Peace and Security

South Sudan should mark its independence on July 9, 2011, by taking key steps to further a robust human rights agenda, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said today. The steps should include placing a moratorium on the death penalty, releasing detainees whose continued imprisonment is unjustified, and ratifying the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

CYPRUS has been placed on the US' sex trafficking watch list after failing to meet minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, failing to show evidence of increased efforts to do so and ‘woefully inadequate' punishments.

Hillary Clinton's speech was met with silence from the male-dominated envoys at the African Union as she criticized the continents aging autocrats. The mood changed when the U.S. Secretary of State turned her attention to women.

North Cauca, Colombia, June 24, 2011: The first meeting of indigenous women in resistance for the survival and autonomy of their peoples concluded on Friday, after taking place at a shelter in Huellas Caloto in the Bodega Alta district in the Cauca department of Colombia.

State Secretary of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy and National Director of project “Fight against sexual and gender-based violence” Snezana Lakicevic will open the National conference “Response to violence against women in family and partner relations” on 29 June at 9.30 at the Deputies' Club, Tolstojeva 2.

UN Women together with the City of Kigali launched a project aimed at promoting the rights of working women and girls.

The project called 'Safe Cities Free of Violence against Women and Girls' was launched on Friday at Kimisagara Youth Centre in Nyarugenge District.

Empowering women and advancing their rights is not only the right thing to do but it can lead to progress on a range of issues, including the fight against poverty, hunger and violence, the head of the United Nations agency tasked with promoting women's rights said today.

There are many things for which Uganda has come to be known over the past quarter of a century. It was, for starters, the first country in post-colonial Africa where a sitting government collapsed due to pressure from a homegrown insurgency.

The Minister of Justice, Tharcisse Karugarama has said that violence against women and girls in African countries is an enormous challenge that rests in the hands of regional security organs.

Karugarama said this, yesterday, while opening the 'Africa Regional Security Organs' capacity building workshop on violence against women and girls; prevention, response and peacekeeping,' held in Kigali.

An Africa Regional Young Women's Leadership Institute (YWLI) yesterday, began in Accra with a call for a vibrant young women's movement to fight gender stereotypes and empower women to reach their full potential in both private and public life.