Join us for a global celebration of the economic, political and social achievements of women.This event will embody the decades of struggle for equality, justice, peace and development. The evening’s festivities include comedic and musical performances by female artists and opportunities to learn about organizations promoting the empowerment of women. Refreshments and live music follow the performances.

The Cambodian parliamentary elections are still three years away, but Ms. Mu Sochua, prominent female politician of the opposition party, is already working hard to win her re-election votes “‘one by one.’” Denied access to the government-controlled newspapers and television – and facing fierce resistance from a male-dominated political elite – Ms. Sochua knows that “she has no time to lose.”

After an 8.8-magnitude earthquake shook Chile to its core this Saturday, Michelle Bachelet, the first female president of the country, will spend her last few weeks in office addressing the unparalleled devastation caused by this natural disaster.

Prime Minister Boiko M. Borisov of Bulgaria has instituted a policy to increase women’s participation in politics. He has recently endorsed a “legion of women”, changing the almost exclusively male face of Bulgarian politics.

It is a promising, exciting time for Iraqis as they await their second major post-war parliamentary elections. For the women, though, this time is also a bleak reminder of the long and difficult road that lies ahead before they can exert any significant political influence in what has always been a very “male-oriented culture.”

Despite the sixteen years that have passed since the end the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the deep wounds across the country remain all too visible. Avega Agahozo, a non-profit association of genocide widows, demonstrates how this slow process of recovery is directly linked to the wounds thousands of Rwandan women continue to suffer from in complete silence.

As the long-awaited London Conference on Afghanistan lies just a day away, female Afghan human rights defenders, deeply troubled with the exclusion of Afghan women’s perspectives in the peace-building process, released a statement of detailed recommendations regarding their country’s security, development, and governance.

In the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, Taina Bien-Aimé, Executive Director of international women’s rights organization Equality Now, wrote a powerful article: she reminds readers that gender issues, and the plight unique to the women in Haiti, must be a central component in the response and management of relief and recovery operations. She exposes the terrible extent of women’s silent suffering prior to the disaster, and warns that following the earthquake, they are left disarmed, weakened, and even more vulnerable to violence and injustice.

UNIFEM announced yesterday the launching of a month-long online discussion forum on “Women in Power and Decision Making.” This is just one segment four-month series of United Nations online discussions organized and hosted by WomenWatch. This series was launched as a central component of the fifteen-year review of the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action in 1995.

Hundreds of women gathered in New Delhi last October to protest the government’s inaction towards the rights of single women, and to reject the widow’s standard “rehabilitation package” which often forces a woman into remarriage or moves her to a shelter home. The campaign consists of two central goals: changing the societal views and beliefs that are a key contributing factor to the marginalization of single women, and lobbying at a national level for the acquisition of federal resources to strengthen and broaden their efforts.