Asia

Female political prisoners in the quarantine section of Iran's Evin Prison have issued a letter for Iranian Women's Day, saying they have suffered repeated sexual threats by their interrogators.

The letter, which was published on the opposition website Kaleme, indicates that male interrogators have often forced these female activists “to make false self-incriminating confessions” by threatening them with sexual assault.

The Advocates for Human Rights has suggested the government of Pakistan to include provision in the Domestic Violence Bill (DVB) that can ensure adequate funding to guarantee effective implementation of the law.

Had help not arrived on time, eight Nepali women would have fallen prey to traffickers, who were plotting to send them to Jordan on forged papers.

The women, most of them in their 20s, were rescued from a hotel in Pahadganj on Thursday evening after Help Nepali Mission informed Delhi Police that a man was allegedly trying to traffic them to Jordan.

After two years of intense wrangling and political deadlock, the extended deadline for passing Nepal's new constitution is looming, with a decision expected on 28 May.

Pressure mounted on Lebanese authorities to adopt laws banning gender-based violence Sunday as several hundred demonstrators took to the streets of Beirut.

Calling for the speedy adoption of a draft law criminalizing domestic violence that is currently under discussing in committee, around 400 activists from 51 different civil society groups marched from the Interior Ministry in Sanayeh to Riad al-Solh Square in downtown Beirut.

The BBC has the first detailed accounts of how Ugandan women ended up in domestic slavery in Iraq, and the extraordinary story of their rescue.

A Kampala company called Uganda Veterans Development Ltd was recruiting women to work for high wages in shops in US Army bases in Iraq.

She signed up, along with 146 other Ugandan women.

The Masihi Foundation of Pakistan reports that two Christian girls of the Punjab region of Pakistan were abducted, raped and forced to convert to Islam. The human rights advocacy group reported that the two sisters, Rebbecca Masih and Saima Masih, were kidnapped in Jhung the district of Faisalabad by a gang of Muslim men.

Iran was reelected to a seat on a UN commission on population and development Thursday, drawing an angry reaction from the United States, which cited Tehran's opposition to women's rights.

US Ambassador Susan Rice said the United States was “deeply disappointed” that the UN Economic and Social Council voted to extend Iran's membership in the council's Commission on Population and Development.

When I was a student in Boston, I rode the subway almost every day. There was a woman who I saw more than once on the Red Line; her face was unforgettable, but not because she was a great beauty.

Almost a decade after Mukhtar Mai was gang-raped, her legacy after years of activism and legal battles that made her Pakistan's most famous champion of women's rights now rests on the fate of her final appeal.

Ms. Mai made front-page headlines when she started her campaign for justice in 2002, challenging not only her attackers but the tribal code of honour that endorses rape as a tool of discipline in rural villages.