Over half a billion people voted in India’s general election in April and May 2014. For many the result was no surprise; having won 282 of 543 seats, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) now holds power in the world’s largest democracy. The election, which was marked by a surge in women voters, and young women in particular, was attributed to women’s concerns about education, employment opportunities, and the rising tide of sexual and other forms of violence against women and girls (VAWG).

AWID recently spoke with a representative from the Myanmar/Burma Women’s Network and the Women’s League of Burma about the proposed ‘Law On the Protection of Race and Religion’.

Hassan Rouhani has now passed the six-month mark as Iran’s President, after his landslide victory in summer 2013 marked the end of the 8-year rule of Ahmedinejad. His predecessor presided over a period widely considered to be among the most challenging for women’s rights activists in the history of the Islamic Republic. Sussan Tahmsebi, an Iranian-American activist and co-founder of the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN) reflects on expectations of, and concerns about, Rouhani after his first six months in office.

In 2003, Sylvia Tamale was named as the “Worst Woman of the Year” by a conservative bloc within Uganda. Working at the time as an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at Makerere University (she later became its Dean), she was vilified for weeks within one of Kampala’s major daily newspapers, New Vision, as responsible for everything from the moral degeneration of the nation to the reason Ugandan teenagers were going to go to hell.

Jane Bennett, African Gender Institute, University of Cape Town

For the past year, Israelis and Palestinians have been participating in a weekly demonstration against the evacuation of Palestinian families from their houses in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Last summer, in the midst of the demonstrations,a feminist debate flared up on the internet following the request of organizers of the "Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement", who asked protesters to come to the demonstrations dressed in a way that respects the values of the Palestinian residents of the neighborhood.

FRIDAY FILE: How do women fare in this rich nation with a relatively poor women’s rights record?

By Kathambi Kinoti

FRIDAY FILE: How do women fare in the prosperous Mediterranean nation of Cyprus?

By Kathambi Kinoti

Cyprus is a nation with a rich cultural history that stretches back over many centuries.Its modern history has been dominated by the territorial conflict between Turkey and Greece, and it is a unique nation, prosperous in some ways and challenged in others.

Girls and boys have equal access to education, and at higher education institutions,young women outperform men by number and by performance.

FRIDAY FILE: Gender based violence is a staple of conflict throughout the world. What are some of the key issues and spaces for gender justice advocacy in 2010?

By Kathambi Kinoti

FRIDAY FILE: Kyrgyzstan – a country in Central Asia – has been wracked recently by an outbreak of violence by some Kyrgyz there against ethnic Uzbeks. AWID analyses the events from a gender perspective.

This article is based on a speech delivered by AWID’s Executive Director, Lydia Alpízar Durán at a High Level Roundtable during the 54th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).