Asia

The caravan has been organised by ActionAid Pakistan and PODA (Potohar Organization for Development Advocacy) to mark nearly one year on from the devastating floods which swept the country in 2010. Women from different flood hit areas of Pakistan including Sindh, Khyber Pukhtunkhwa and South Punjab gathered in the capital on Tuesday to rally public and media support for the cause of poor women affected heavily by the unprecedented floods.

From the earliest times Kashmiri women enjoyed freedom, wielded ample power and exercised responsibility. They had an elevated status than many of their counterparts in India. In Kashmir they were afforded opportunity to distinguish themselves in any sphere of social activity. As a matter of fact they had emerged from domestic into the political stage.

Taliban gunmen have killed the headteacher of a girls' school near the Afghan capital after he ignored warnings to stop teaching girls, government officials have said.

Khan Mohammad, the head of the Porak girls' school in Logar province, was shot dead near his home on Tuesday, said Deen Mohammad Darwish, a spokesman for the Logar governor.

"He was killed because he wanted to run the school," Darwish said.

The campaign made them bear the brunt of a government ban on demonstrations around parliament announced on Tuesday, ahead of a critical ballot battle between Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal and the opposition parties with the beleaguered premier seeking one more year to draft the new constitution.

Iranian judicial authorities should immediately release two recently detained women's rights activists, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said today. The Campaign added that the Judiciary should end the harassment and arbitrary prosecution of citizens engaged in lawful actions aimed at challenging Iran's discriminatory laws.

Pakistani human rights crusader Mukhtar Mai gained international attention in 2002 after she challenged entrenched gender and socio-economic stereotypes in her country, suing the men who gang-raped her on the orders of a village council.

Pakistan's Minister for Information and Broadcasting Firdous Ashiq Awan visited Effat University on Tuesday, with the message of women empowerment, and praised the great efforts of Queen Effat, the wife of the late King Faisal, and her vision of educating Saudi women.

On June 13, four women participating in a democracy demonstration at Tahrir Square in Baghdad were molested and beaten allegedly by government sponsored protestors, according to a report on Ms. Magazine's Website.

The four women were part of a 25-woman group from the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq, a leading feminist group in the country, which participated in the demonstration.

Within the next three years, the minimum age of Sri Lankan women seeking employment as domestic workers aboard will be increased to 30, Foreign Employment Welfare Minister Dilan Perera said today.

He said this would be the first step in bringing about a complete freeze on Sri Lankan women going abroad for employment as domestic aides.

A platform of left-leaning women associations on Tuesday called upon the government to form a policy that can 'truly ensure equal right for women.'

The leaders of the platform also demanded a 'unified' family law and amendment to the inheritance law incorporating the provision of equal rights for men and women.