Goal 3: promote gender equality and empower women - Newsfeed

BAGHDAD Monday, March 30, 2009 (IRIN) - A camp consisting of 150 caravans has been set up by the Baghdad local authorities to accommodate a specific group of internally displaced persons (IDPs), a local official said on 29 March.

KORHOGO Monday, March 30, 2009 (IRIN) - Women in villages around Korhogo, northern Côte d’Ivoire, dare not walk to their fields alone for fear of rape.

GUELENDENG Friday, March 27, 2009 (IRIN) - Mariam, 14, was forced to marry a man of over 60 in Guelendeng, 150 km south of the Chadian capital N'Djamena. Desperate, she told IRIN that she tried to commit suicide by self-immolation. Saved by her neighbours, Mariam spent more than one year in the hospital and said she now lives in fear that her father will send her back to her husband.

PHNOM PENH Thursday, March 26, 2009 (IRIN) - Sreygao is house-bound, her life destroyed after a jealous wife doused her face and neck with acid. It burned into her skin and blinded her. “Everything has been taken from me because someone was very jealous,” she told IRIN.

KABUL Thursday, March 26, 2009 (IRIN) - Eighty-one primary and secondary schools which had previously been closed in southern areas of Afghanistan owing to insecurity have reopened in the past three months, the Education Ministry (MoE) has said.

KARACHI Thursday, March 26, 2009 (IRIN) - Some 30,000 women in Pakistan die every year due to pregnancy-related complications, according to a new report.

MANILA Tuesday, March 24, 2009 (IRIN) - Thousands of Filipino women continue to die due to complications related to childbirth, according to health specialists.

GAZA CITY Tuesday, March 24, 2009 (IRIN) - The UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in Gaza, local Palestinian NGOs and mental health professionals are reporting increased incidents of domestic violence and sexual assault against women in Gaza since the beginning of 2009.

KARACHI Sunday, March 22, 2009 (IRIN) - Insurgents in Pakistan’s volatile Swat Valley in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) who recently made a peace deal with the government now want all NGOs to leave the area.

MONROVIA Thursday, March 19, 2009 (IRIN) - Health officials have launched a strategy to tackle hunger in Liberia, where 37 percent of children under five suffer chronic malnutrition.

MITHI Wednesday, March 18, 2009 (IRIN) - Tharparakar District, Sindh Province, southern Pakistan, is one of the least developed districts in the country, but a new health initiative is providing a glimmer of hope to local people.

DILI Wednesday, March 18, 2009 (IRIN) - A call for more lenient abortion legislation in this predominantly Catholic country is renewing friction between the Church and pro-abortion activists.

JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, March 18, 2009 (IRIN) - Access to mobiles phones has transformed the lives of rural women farmers boosting income and expanding knowledge, a pilot study in Lesotho has found.

BUKAVU Monday, March 16, 2009 (IRIN) - Only 17, Esperance Wineza, a refugee from Rwanda, is expecting her second chid. Wineza has been married to a Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) militia captain for two years. Some FDLR militias participated in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and it has been blamed for rights abuses in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

SANAA Sunday, March 15, 2009 (IRIN) - Children of poor families, girls and children of the Akhdaam (servants) are the most discriminated against in Yemen, a new study has found.

FARAH Sunday, March 15, 2009 (IRIN) - There are indications that some Taliban groups fervently oppose the use of contraceptives and may start using the issue as a pretext to launch further attacks on health centres, experts say.

MAPUTO Saturday, March 14, 2009 (IRIN) - The plastic cap off a bottle of water, a twist of paper and a woven reed mat to serve as a tray are all that widow Fina Bota, 32, needs to sell roasted peanuts and earn a simple living in Mozambique's capital, Maputo.

KATHMANDU Friday, March 13, 2009 (IRIN) - Eight years ago, Kamrik Gharti Magar had a secure income, a large farm, dozens of cattle, a comfortable house and a happy family.

KAMPALA Thursday, March 12, 2009 (IRIN) - Ugandan researchers are conducting the first study to find workable HIV interventions to help the country's highly vulnerable fishing communities.

TEL AVIV Thursday, March 12, 2009 (IRIN) - The largest ever people-trafficking ring in Israel has been uncovered: Twelve members of the gang (all women) were arrested by police in Tel Aviv on 8 March following a two-year undercover operation.