Asia

Violence against women is an abuse of fundamental human rights, says Australia's Head of Mission, Judith Robinson. She said there was evidence to suggest that violence against women negates every area of development activity.

"It impacts on women's health and it also impacts on the ability of women to actively participate in the economic, political and social activities within their community," she said.

Socioeconomic experts on Saturday called for including Middle East and North African (MENA) women and the young generation in the economy so as to achieve cross-sector development.

During a session titled: “Linking trade to development”, held under the World Economic Forum, the experts discussed means to better leverage regional and global trade to restart growth and drive economic and social development.

Women of Jammu and Kashmir from both the sides of the Line of Control (LoC) expressed their desire for peace, security and economic stability in the region and demanded an immediate end to the protracted conflict.

The women during a two-day intra-Kashmir conference held at Gulmarg demanded their participation in all the peace-building initiatives and peace negotiations on Kashmir.

Since 2008, the government has not met a legal obligation to issue an annual report on gender equality, MP Damira Niyazaliyeva, chairwoman of the parliamentary committee on social policy, health care, labour and migration, said at a hearing on “The woman in contemporary Kyrgyz society: problems and achievements.”

Sit-ins, lobbying the government and further public awareness will be part of a new drive to eliminate gender-based discrimination, activists said Thursday.

A sit-in in front of Parliament will take place on Nov. 13, and another one is tentatively scheduled for Dec. 10, which marks U.N. Human Rights Day.

An Indonesian woman has won a United Nations Development Program-sponsored peace award for helping to build peace and prevent conflict in North Maluku.

Electronita Duan, from Halmahera, was awarded the N-PEACE award along with fellow peace advocates Filomena Barros dos Reis of East Timor, Purna Shova Chitrakar of Nepal and Shreen Abdul Saroor of Sri Lanka.

The UN Women's Fund for Gender Equality launches proposals for Women's Empowerment in Arab States. Perhaps everyone could take a page out of Muammar Gaddafi's book in Libya, where women have been given total conditions to foster their careers without regard to gender-based impediments.

The Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution under George Mason University hosted an international conference entitled “Assessing the Deadlock in the Nagorno-Karabakh Peace Process.” The event brought together analysts from US, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. The conference was moderated by the Carnegie Endowment's Russia and Eurasia Program Senior Associate Thomas de Waal, vestikavkaza.ru reported.

"There was no difference between men and women.” So says Asmaa Mahfouz, an Egyptian activist, remembering the protests that felled Hosni Mubarak at the beginning of the year. Though some men told her to get out of the way, others held up umbrellas to protect her.

On Sunday, Sept. 25, 2011 King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia announced that Saudi women now have the right to serve as members of the Shura Council, the appointed consultative council that advises the king, and are allowed to run as candidates and nominate candidates in the next set of municipal elections which will be in 2015. This new law will make a historic change in the role of women in Saudi Arabia.