Asia

The government has kicked off efforts of Localizing the National Action Plan (LNAP) on Women, Peace and Security in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Social activists say that attempts to rehabilitate sex workers in this former monarchy call for special efforts to uplift the Badi, a Hindu caste that has for centuries been associated with entertainment and prostitution.

A report on Wednesday reveals that child marriage has become less prevalent in South Asia over the last two decades, but not for brides of all age groups. While matrimonial unions for girls under 14 are less frequent, adolescents over 15 are still marrying at about the same rate as they did two decades ago.

Amnesty International issued an open letter to President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai at their "Shadow Summit" Saturday urging both leaders to safeguard women's rights.

Inspired by real life events, Saferworld has produced a short film showing the important role women in Nepal can play in providing security, particularly in the police force.

Female protesters continue to participate in pro-democracy demonstrations that remain deadly more than a year after President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown.

With the US and NATO planning the departure of their forces from Afghanistan by December 2014, some Afghan women and international rights advocates are growing increasingly concerned that a decade-long focus on expanding Afghan women's rights will go with them.

As the United States convenes the NATO summit in Chicago this weekend, the fate of Afghanistan's women is on my mind. This spring marks the 10th anniversary of the return of Afghanistan's girls to the classroom. During the Taliban era, women were denied education. Women could not work, even when they were the sole providers for their families. Under the Taliban dictatorship, it was decreed that women should be neither seen nor heard.

The Domestic Violence Bill was first introduced in Pakistan's National Assembly in 2006 by a woman member of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), Sherry Rehman, currently Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States. At the time, the leader of the PPP, the late Benazir Bhutto, was in political exile and the party served as the main opposition under General Musharraf's government.

While Aung San Suu Kyi enjoys iconic status in Myanmar (also known as Burma), women remain invisible in this country steeped in Buddhist tradition and emerging from decades of military rule.