Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

As World AIDS Day is commemorated across the globe today, health officials in Indonesia are warning of a worrying increase in the number of young women contracting the virus, particularly through sexual violence.

In 1989, women accounted for just 2.5 percent of all people living with HIV/AIDS in the country, according to the National Commission on AIDS (KPAN). By 2009, however, they made up 25.5 percent of cases.

This year's 16 Days of Activism campaign focuses on women and conflict, a timely theme considering we are also reviewing 10 years since the adoption of United Nations Security Council resolution 1325.

This resolution linked violence against women during conflict and their marginalisation during peace processes with the challenges of maintaining international peace and security.

Within the framework of a visit to Kazakhstan for participation in the OSCE Summit UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will meet with a group of women of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - participants of regional initiative " Women for peace and security in Central Asia, the Ferghana Valley region"; the UNDP press service informs of it.

Last week, Lebanese women's rights activists launched a 16-day campaign to push parliament to pass new legislation to protect women from violence inside their homes.

According to the activists, there are currently now laws in the country specifically designed to protect women from domestic violence. Activists said at the launching of the campaign that rarely are perpetrators brought to justice.

The abuse of women has been going on for centuries and it is often the case that a woman is killed before the problem is taken seriously. The United Nations Fund for the Development of Women (UNIFEM), recently launched an initiative to improve the safety and welfare of women in five major cities: New Delhi (India), Cairo (Egypt), Quito (Ecuador), Kigali (Rwanda), and Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea).

December 2, 2010 (JUBA) - Women activists are calling on the government of southern Sudan to allocate more resources to address gender based violence (GBV) which they say has increased in the region.

The annual 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence campaign ending next week has special meaning for uprooted women in Colombia, where one in every six of them is a victim of sexual violence.

It has been heard at a so-called open clinic day for antenatal mothers that gender-based violence constitutes a human rights violation, which should have no place in the way men relate to women at this day and age.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 6 (APP): Violence and discrimination against women and girls remains pervasive and is often overlooked, a UN human rights expert said Monday, stressing that efforts to achieve the global anti-poverty goals should include protection of women's rights.“As long as such discrimination persists and as long as the achievement of the MDGs [Millennium Development Goals] is not pursued by closely looking at the increased risks

Two weeks ago, Natalie sat across from me in a crowded camp of displaced earthquake survivors in Port-au-Prince, wrapped her arms around her pregnant belly, and told me the world needed to do something about rape in Haiti.