Asia

Tanvir Zehra is one of thousands of women across Pakistan entering politics for the first time. Carefully adjusting her black headscarf, she wades into the crowd at the polling station, gently cajoling the hundreds of queuing voters to elect her to the town council at Bahawalpur, deep in the province of Punjab.

Recently several cases of “Honour Killings” in Afghanistan have been reported by the media and the Afghan Women's Network (AWN) recorded three cases of such killings across the country during the month of March.

The Solomon Islands, a developing island nation in the south-west Pacific Islands, has one of the highest urbanisation rates in the region, and the basic service infrastructure is struggling to cater for the influx of people from the provinces to the capital, Honiara. Thirty-five percent of the city's population, who live in informal settlements, are facing the health consequences of a dire shortage of clean water and sanitation.

Gaza's Hamas-controlled parliament has passed a law requiring separate classes for boys and girls in public and private schools from the fourth grade.

Osama Mazini, the Hamas education minister, said on Monday that the law which was issued on February 10, was approved by the Palestinian group's legislative council and went into effect on Sunday.

After the publication of an article in The New York Times on Monday about an Afghan man who had agreed to give his 6-year-old daughter in marriage to pay off his debt to another man, the father called The Times and said the debt had been paid nearly a month ago by an anonymous donor.

As the shadows lengthened around her family's hut here in one of Kabul's sprawling refugee camps, a slight 6-year-old girl ran in to where her father huddled with a group of elders near a rusty wood stove. Her father, Taj Mohammad, looked away, his face glum.

“She does not know what is going to happen,” he said softly.

Thousands of Syrians fled to Jordan's Zataari refugee camp to escape violence at home. But now women and children live in fear of kidnap, rape and sham marriages in the camp meant to keep them safe.

If agony has a sound, it is the cry to God made by 100-year-old Shatwah, as she sits broken and bereft in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan.

The rape and murder of a young woman in New Delhi in December followed by two attacks on foreign female travelers has altered how tourists view India and led to a sharp fall in the numbers of foreign tourists, especially women, a study said.

Jan Kubis said that despite the good news of a fall in annual civilian casualties in Afghanistan - the first decline in several years - the casualties of women subjected to violence are on the increase.

The United Nations said last month that more than 300 women and girls were killed and more than 560 injured during 2012.

The United Nation's office in Afghanistan on Thursday highlighted the importance of women's active participation in the upcoming presidential election and peace talks in Afghanistan.