Asia

In Kyrgyzstan, bride kidnapping is considered an old tradition. However, an increase in incidents in recent years shows that the current economic and political climate is primarily responsible for fostering the phenomenon. Edda Schlager reports

There were so many tasks left unfinished by the government in 2010 related to gender equality. The gaps are seen not only in the increasing cases of domestic violence, but also in the commodification of working women (Read: female migrant workers).

The world is welcoming the year 2011, but the women of North-east India are just not able to do the same. How can they, when they face brutal rapes and murders daily? They remember 2010 with nothing but panic and alarm. The several instances of brutalities against women reported are not only alarming but also signify that the safety of women is turning from bad to worse and to worst.

A biweekly bulletin has for the past year been helping to transform the lives of women in Maluku's capital.

The 16-page gazette, called Koran Ibu (Mothers' News) , has been training poorly educated women to become journalists so they can bring attention to the often neglected issues facing women and children in the province .

In modern times, Kashmir is known more for violence less for scenic beauty. Two decades conflict has not only done irreparable loss to life and property but has done unimaginable harm to the women folk, who are at the receiving end directly and indirectly.

Women in Afghanistan are being recruited as front line police officers for the first time, UK broadcaster Sky News reported on Wednesday.

In the past, women were only allowed to carry out menial support tasks in the back office.

But now the Afghan authorities, with the help of British instructors, are training women to help their male colleagues at the Afghan National Police (ANP) tackle the most dangerous of insurgents.

Iraq has run out of money to pay for widows' benefits, farm crops and other programmes for the poor, its parliament was told yesterday.

In only their fourth session since being elected in March, MPs demanded to know what happened to the estimated £625 million allocated for welfare funding by the finance ministry for 2010.

The new Iraqi government, which received a vote of confidence from parliament on Tuesday, is almost exclusively male, with the exception of a lone woman who is a minister without portfolio.

Bushra Hussein Saleh is a deputy from Fadhila, a small Shiite fundamentalist party that is a member of the National Alliance grouping of Shiite parties.