Asia

Israeli police have detained 10 women at one of Judaism's holiest sites for wearing prayer shawls, which Orthodox tradition sees as solely for men, authorities confirm.

Among those detained on Monday at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City was Susan Silverman, a reform rabbi who is a sister of the famous US comedian Sarah Silverman, and her teenage daughter, police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld has said.

Among chaos in neighboring Syria and increasing refugees fleeing to Iraq, many Iraqi women are fighting to stop brutality against them and "raise the voice of Iraqi women" in the predominately male government, a senior UN official tasked with advancing gender equality in Iraq told Xinhua.

Opposition chief Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib demanded all women held in Syrian prisons be freed by Sunday, or the regime will lose its chance for dialogue, in an interview with BBC Arabic.

The near weekly demonstrations and sit-ins lobbying for a range of women's issues in the Lebanese capital have one common denominator: Alia Awada.

Don't wait for legal and judicial reforms to fight violence against women. Be the change you want to see. That's the message conveyed by 12 prominent Mumbaikars from different walks of life who came together on a platform organized by the Asia Society to deliberate on the way forward to deal with the bitter reality of violence and women.

More than 100 women in India were apparently left out in a field after a mass sterilization at a hospital in the Malda district of West Bengal, according to multiple reports.

Former Special Representative of UN Secretary General and Head of Mission in Liberia Ellen Margrethe Loej has urged Pakistan to include more women for the United Nations peacekeeping mission.

She said this in an interview with ‘The News' during her stay in Pakistan.

For years, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Northern Iraq has struggled to fight violence against women in the region, with statistics still indicating high rates of violence amid efforts by feminists to challenge the government's strategy on this issue.

As if the war which drove them out of Syria and the hardships of exile were not enough, refugee women and children in Lebanon are facing domestic violence born of stress, deprivation and frustration.

The Syrian government is arming and training Syrian women to fight for President Bashar al-Assad, putting it ahead of the Pentagon when it comes to sending women to the front lines, according to video footage and activists' reports.