The fifth annual meeting of the Arab-European Human Rights Dialogue opened on Monday in the Qatari capital Doha, Qatar. Hosted by the National Human Rights Committee (NHRC) in Qatar the conference brings together human rights activists from the Arab and European countries to discuss women’s rights.

In Afghanistan, where women have traditionally been treated as shut-ins and worse, 29 Afghan women are taking a daring step: They are the first volunteers to undergo training to serve in the all-male Afghan national army.

While the World Cup has united people around TV sets across the world over the past weeks, another more radical act of global unity took place. This past weekend the world's leading governments came together and talked about women.

When I made the decision to move to Vienna, I was unprepared for the repercussions my attitude, behaviour and opinions would have in forming and influencing European perceptions of women from Saudi Arabia...

President Barack Obama's administration is taking a multi-faceted approach toward women’s rights worldwide. The U.S. Department of State is charged with much of the coordination of this effort, through the Secretary’s Office of Global Women's Issues.

S/GWI and USUN’s approach to women’s issues stems from the fundamental principle, expressed during the 1995 Beijing UN World Conference, that women’s rights are human rights and human rights are women’s rights.

Women's rights will not be sacrificed in any settlement between the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Taliban militants, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday. Clinton ruled out U.S. support, or at least her own, for negotiations with anyone who would roll back advances for Afghan women achieved since a U.S.-led invasion ousted the militant Islamic Taliban movement from power in 2001.

In the halls of the United Nation's New York bureau, officials have been considering a proposal to unify the UN's many organizations promoting women’s equality and rights into a single "gender entity."