Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

Authorities in Uzbekistan have reportedly been running a secret program in the last two years to sterilize women, often without their knowledge or consent, according to the BBC.

Adolat, a victim of the secret sterilization program, told BBC that she had went to see a doctor and discovered that she had been sterilized after birth to her daughter by Caesarean section.

The once remarkable gains in protecting and promoting equality between women and men in Afghanistan are now facing their most serious challenges.

Two questions must be asked: Are the emerging challenges to women's rights an indication of an overall backslide in security and stability in Afghanistan? Is this evidence of women's rights being negotiated away as part of the peace and reconciliation process?

Twenty years ago this month, war broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the main act in the dissolution of Yugoslavia. In Sarajevo, the country's capital that once proudly hosted the Winter Olympics, 11,541 red chairs on the main street mark the grim anniversary. One for every citizen killed during the almost four years of the city's siege, the longest in recent history.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has become infamous in recent years as the “rape capital of the world,” known for its alarmingly high rates of sexual and gender-based violence (GBV) in its eastern region.

Rights group Amnesty International has slammed the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina for neglecting women survivors of wartime rape.

In a statement issued Thursday, the group says that Sarajevo in 2010 made a commitment to ensure justice, truth and reparation for hundreds of survivors of wartime sexual violence, but failed to enact it.

Mali's junta on Wednesday accused rebels controlling the northern city of Gao of grave human rights abuses, in particular the kidnap and rape of women and girls.

"The populations of northern Mali, specifically those in Gao, are suffering grave human rights violations" since the town was seized Saturday by Tuareg rebels and Islamists, the junta said in a statement.

Northern Mali is on the brink of a major humanitarian disaster and aid agencies must be allowed immediate access to avoid further civilian deaths, Amnesty International said today.

The three northern towns of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu have experienced days of looting, abductions and chaos since they were occupied by armed groups late last week.

She had expected a job in a hotel. But when Valentina arrived here two months ago from Romania, the man who helped her get here — a man she had considered her boyfriend — made it clear that the job was on the side of the road.

They have been beaten, spat at and cursed. Jeered, mocked and ignored.

But a few dozen women dressed in black regularly stand silently on Belgrade's main streets. They hold signs demanding an end to war, advocating human rights or reminding people of the bloody ethnic clashes in the former Yugoslavia that Serbia itself had triggered in the 1990s.

They are the Women in Black.

Isabel* thinks she's finally found a place where she can rebuild her life, seven years after fleeing her home and moving from one location to another in search of safety.