global women's issues
With only 41 percent of countries regularly producing data on violence against women and only 13 percent of countries having a dedicated gender statistics budget, the first-ever United Nations World Data Forum explored ways to close these data gaps on January 17. [...] The panel, titled 'Gender Data for Decision-making: Strengthening the Links,' was among the nearly 100 sessions and parallel events scheduled throughout the 15-18 January gathering in Cape Town, South African, of more than 1,400 data experts around the world.
It has been an encouraging year for our partnership with Africa. Alongside our African partners, we have made significant progress advancing democracy, peace, and prosperity throughout the continent, though challenges, of course, remain.
Malala Yousafzai, the teenager who was shot in the head by the Taliban for going to school but miraculously survived, is to meet some of the kidnapped girls who escaped from Boko Haram. The 17-year-old, who is now a women's rights campaigner, travelled to Nigeria to help draw attention to their cause.
In recent weeks, warfare in Burma’s Kachin State has increased and is now making its way closer to the Burma-China border. While the international community has paid little attention to the Kachin conflict over the past few years, understanding its complexity is now more important than ever. Failing to do so could have dire implications on the lives of Kachin women, and on diplomatic relations in the region.
Topless demonstrators in Ukraine are part of the self-defined “sextremist” Femen group – radical women protesting the Russian invasion of Crimea.