Asia

In a dimly lit room at the back of an Afghan house, 21-year-old Zahara is crouched on a plank of wood weaving a large carpet on a loom that she was able to buy using a microfinance loan of USD 1,100.

In one of the worst areas of maternal care in the world, a health advocacy is teaching Indian women the three big factors in maternal deaths and how to assert political and community pressure to avoid them.

Payments demanded by doctors for conducting deliveries of babies after 11 at night at a district public health center in Udaipur, a city in the western Indian state of Rajasthan, came down dramatically around August 2009.

The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has pledged anew to help the new administration conduct programs that uplift the rights of women and children in Mindanao.

A memorandum of agreement was recently signed by Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) Secretary Luwalhati Antonino and UNICEF Country representative Vanessa Tobin, witnessed no less than President Benigno Aquino III himself.

Three years ago, I visited a hospital in southern Afghanistan renovated by Australian Defence Force engineers. A young, goofy digger showed me proudly around the rebuilt facility, pointing to a muddy yard where quarantined cholera patients once perished in tents.

Remember Aisha, the 18-year-old from Afghanistan? Well, this teenager had her nose and ears cut off by her abusive husband, a Taliban follower, as punishment for running away from home. Thanks to the efforts of the Grossman Burn Foundation, (a non-profit organisation), she underwent reconstructive surgery last year.

An Iraqi Kurdish woman activist has said on Wednesday that the minimization of weapons among citizens have curtailed the killing of women in northern Iraq's Kurdistan Region, demanding the Kurdish government KRG to “take serious measures to minimize the phenomena of carrying of weapons by men in the Region.

A WOMEN's activist has called for the even distribution of resources in a bid to meet goals outlined by the United Nations Women's agency.

Fiji Women's Crisis Centre co-ordinator Shamima Ali said most funding for programs directed at empowering women was spent on consultants instead of projects.

Troopers from the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment working alongside their Afghan National Police partners at the Police Training Center in Qalat started the New Year right Monday, Jan. 3, by graduating a class of 134 new recruits. Class 1101 had the distinction of not only being the first class of 2011, but also the first class to include volunteers from the Commerce Stability Program and five female recruits.

In late December, Turkmenistan is due to submit a regular report to the United Nations on how it is meeting its obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, CEDAW. Experts on women's rights say the reality is a long way from the appearance of equality the country presents.

GABRIELA Rep. Luz Ilagan and Emmi de Jesus filed House Bill 1477 seeking the establishment of a national women's museum or institution dedicated to the heritage, heroism and martyrdom of Filipino women.