Asia

Afghan women's safety activists say a new partnership with religious leaders can help stop Taliban attacks on girls and women that have left a Pakistani teen activist for girls just across the border in Swat Province undergoing brain surgery after a gunshot execution.

Activists said the provincial government should appoint an ombudsperson to redress women's complaints against harassment and discrimination at the workplace, as required by the anti-sexual harassment law. The appointment was first suggested in the Sexual Harassment Bill 2010.

In Kyrgyzstan, someone who steals a cow could go to prison for up to 11 years. But men who kidnap underage girls and force them into marriage run little risk of prosecution -- although current legislation does provide for a three-year sentence.

That may be about to change -- at least a little bit.

In the latest incident, an 18-year-old identified only as Najibullah was arrested on October 13 in connection with the gruesome torture and beheading two days earlier of a woman in the western city of Herat, near the border with Iran.

Mahgul, a 25-year-old newlywed, was found dead outside her home by her family, who then carried her mutilated body to the local Department for Women's Affairs to raise awareness of her killing.

A police officer in Karachi beats up his wife at the slightest provocation. She is badly bruised but has no way of seeking relief. This is a story heard in every third household in Pakistan.

The news that the Taliban gunned down a schoolgirl last week shocked the world, but not a young woman named Noorjahan Akbar. The 21-year-old Akbar has been leading a fight for women's rights in Afghanistan—and she's quite familiar with seeing women in her region get targeted for “crimes” such as seeking an education, refusing a forced marriage, or fleeing an abusive husband.

The Resolution 1325 is the first resolution ever passed by the UN Security Council which laid the foundation for equal participation by women in the maintenance and promotion of peace and security, conflict preventions, peace negotiations, peacekeeping, operations, humanitarian assistance and post conflict reconstruction.

Many were randomly scattered by Tamil Tiger rebels in the final months before their defeat. Both the rebels and the army made extensive use of Pakistani-made P4 mines, which can take the foot off someone unfortunate enough to step on them.

But now efforts are under way to rid the country of this scourge once and for all.

At sunrise 12 women deminers laugh and joke as they prepare for work.

Outgoing head of the ICRC delegation in Afghanistan, Reto Stocker, a seven-year veteran of Afghan aid efforts, said as the NATO-led war against the Taliban dragged into a twelfth year, the outlook for ordinary Afghans was increasingly bleak.

"Since I arrived here in 2006, local armed groups have proliferated. Civilians have been caught between not just one, but multiple front lines," Stocker told journalists in Kabul.

“While both the organisations sent in our full documents to the Commission on the 10th, as per the deadline for written documents, due to time constraints, we chose to highlight a few of the main points in our oral presentation today,” said FWCC Coordinator Shamima Ali.