Asia

Most of the Pacific Islands region continues to be one of the least women-friendly places in the world. Although many of its leaders spout platitudes about respect for women in Pacific cultures, statistical records show some of the worst skews in gender parity on several fronts—ranging from health and education to employment, and business and political participation.

MYANMAR'S Election Commission announced last week the landslide victory of the opposition National League of Democracy (NLD) party, winning 43 out of 44 parliamentary seats (97 percent) in the by-elections of April 1.After the television announced the triumph, rapturous crowds thronged the streets yelling Aung San Suu Kyi's name.The victory will not result in more power for the NLD but it was taken seriously by supporters of Suu Kyi because it

CAIRO - In years past, when conservative members of Egypt's parliament spoke out to demand reversing the rights of women or Coptic Christians, most of the country laughed it off and moved on.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Apr 16, 2012 (IPS) - Collateral damage caused by the ‘war on terror', prosecuted by the United States and its allies in Afghanistan since 2001, may well extend to psychological trauma sustained by thousands of women in the bordering areas of northwestern Pakistan.

Members and officials of the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders - International Civil Society Action Network (GNWP-ICAN) and the Women Engaged in Action on 1325 (WE Act 1325) were recently here to confer with the city women leaders and city officials on the implementation of the Philippine National Action Plan on Resolution No. 1325 in the locality.

Authorities in Uzbekistan have reportedly been running a secret program in the last two years to sterilize women, often without their knowledge or consent, according to the BBC.

Adolat, a victim of the secret sterilization program, told BBC that she had went to see a doctor and discovered that she had been sterilized after birth to her daughter by Caesarean section.

To many outsiders, Bangladesh is best known for its poverty and the natural disasters that hit it with depressing regularity.

The once remarkable gains in protecting and promoting equality between women and men in Afghanistan are now facing their most serious challenges.

Two questions must be asked: Are the emerging challenges to women's rights an indication of an overall backslide in security and stability in Afghanistan? Is this evidence of women's rights being negotiated away as part of the peace and reconciliation process?

Karachi, Pakistan - From a country where terrorism, extremism, inner strife and polarisation continue to eat at its roots, good news is reaching out globally from a perhaps unexpected source – its women. Pakistani women are fighting for more than just the empowerment of women. They are taking centre-stage in Pakistan's fight against oppression, social tyranny and extremism.

It is never easy to persuade those who have acquired power forcibly of the wisdom of peaceful change," Aung San Suu Kyi once remarked. But the leader of Burma's main pro-democracy party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), never wavered in her belief that it was possible. Now it may actually be happening.