Asia

National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Chairman Mizanur Rahman yesterday said the government should implement the newly formulated National Women Development Policy for empowering women.

He was addressing a roundtable on the policy at the auditorium of Bangladesh Institute of Administration and Management (Biam) in the capital.

Ruchira Gupta, founder and president of Apne Aap Women Worldwide, an NGO working against sex trafficking, has been honoured by the United Nations Association's New York Chapter.

The honour in recognition of "her unrelenting effort to end human trafficking, in particular the sexual exploitation of women and children" was conferred at the group's "Spring Luncheon" in New York City this week.

Children and armed conflict – Report of the Secretary-General

In February 2003, the Tel Aviv-based Hotline for Migrant Workers (HMW) published a report titled, "Modern Slavery and Trafficking in Human Beings in Israel," saying:

Many have long maintained that a mass-based and sustained campaign of nonviolent Palestinian resistance -- a "White Intifada" -- if vigorously supported by a united Palestinian leadership and by Israeli, Arab, and international peace and solidarity movements, could end the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.

Currently, more women in Kurdistan are seeking primary, secondary and higher education, creating a more educated female workforce.

Pakistani lawmakers have adopted tougher penalties for acid attacks in a step towards eradicating a form of violence that can disfigure around 200 women a year, campaigners said Wednesday.

After the war, one of the few jobs available is clearing explosives.

The women are taking back war-torn northern Sri Lanka, one square metre at a time.

"Security forces in civilian clothes have threatened me with the jambiyya, not just during demonstrations, but everywhere I go," the protest leader and journalist Tawakkol Karman told me, describing the traditional dagger that Yemeni men wear strapped to their waists.

Three years ago, when Indra Bahadur Sinjali of Nawalparasi returned after a weeklong trip to Baglung, daughter Lok Maya was not home. With help from local schoolteacher Yam Gurung, Raju Chhetri had trafficked her to the Indian city of Mumbai.

Chhetri sold Lok Maya for IRs 45,000 to a Mumbai-based trafficking agency which later supplied the girl to the Middle East.