United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro highlighted the importance of empowering women to build healthier, better educated, more peaceful and more prosperous societies.
“Study after study has shown us that when women are fully empowered and engaged, all of society benefits,“ Migiro told the International Women Leaders Global Security Summit in New York, reported Un.org.
“Only in this way can we successfully take on the enormous challenges confronting our world--from conflict resolution and peacebuilding to fighting AIDS and reaching all the other Millennium Development Goals,“ she stated, referring to the ambitious set of anti-poverty targets the world has pledged to achieve by 2015.
She recalled that at the 2005 World Summit, leaders declared that gender equality and human rights for all are essential to advancing development, peace and security. Five years before that, the Security Council adopted resolution 1325 on women, peace and security.
But while global goals and commitments on women’s empowerment are in place, “we still have far to go in implementing them fully--from school enrolment to women’s economic independence and representation in decision-making bodies,“ she stated.
The Deputy Secretary-General noted that in almost all countries, women continue to be under-represented in decision-making positions; their work continues to be undervalued; and violence against women and girls continues unabated worldwide.
Women in leadership positions from around the world held their first summit Friday in New York to enhance the effectiveness of women’s leadership on global security.
The three-day “International Women Leaders Global Security Summit“ was held in a Manhattan hotel under the co-chairmanship of former Irish president Mary Robinson and former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell, AFP said.
Some 100 women business leaders, members of government, lawmakers, diplomats and researchers attended.

A UN General Assembly committee has adopted by consensus a resolution urging action to eliminate rape and other forms of sexual violence, a UN statement Said.
The non-binding resolution, co-sponsored by more than 80 countries, was adopted without a vote after the text was amended at the request of the African group to make sure it covered all forms of sexual violence whether committed by government troops, irregular forces or civilians, AFP reported.
The US-drafted text calls for the elimination of “rape and other forms of sexual violence in all their manifestations, including as instruments to achieve political objectives.“
It urges member states “to take special measures to protect women and girls from gender-based violence,“ to end impunity for perpetrators of such crimes, to provide victims with greater access to health care, including trauma counseling, and to promote human rights education.
It also asks states to consider ratifying or acceding to all human rights treaties on the issue, including as a priority the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and its Optional Protocol.
South Africa, which had initially been accused by the United States of obstructing the resolution, joined with other African delegations, notably Angola, in pressing for numerous changes to the text.
The US delegate welcomed adoption of the text while stressing that a stronger emphasis on the use of rape for military objectives would have been preferable.
Washington has pointed to charges that government troops and irregular armed groups are using rape as a tactic for intimidation and warfare, notably in Sudan and Myanmar.
The resolution is widely expected to be endorsed by the full 192-member General Assembly.

More women than men were ordained as Church of England priests last year for the first time since a ban was lifted on female clergy, the church said.
A total of 478 clergy were ordained in 2006; of those 244 were women and 234 men. Most of the women were ordained to unpaid or non-stipendiary posts, such as the role of assistant priest.
Of those ordained to full-time stipendiary or paid posts, 128 were men and 95 were women, AFP reported.
The Church of England, whose highest-ranking cleric the archbishop of Canterbury is head of the worldwide Anglican communion, saw its first female clergy ordained in 1994.
Its General Synod, or “church parliament“ of senior members, has backed the concept of women bishops as “theologically justified“, although the principle has caused an outcry among conservatives.

Before she escaped, Chandra worked 16 hours a day seven days a week, cooking, cleaning and running a household for a Lebanese family.
The only time the Sri Lankan maid could leave was to throw out the garbage.
If she complained, she was told not to be “stupid.“ Then she found the key to the closet, where her employers had hidden her passport, reported AP.
“One day, while madam was on the telephone, I opened the front door and just left. Sleeping on the street was better than being in that prison,“ the 27-year-old told The Associated Press, giving only her first name for fear of retribution.
Chandra is one of thousands of foreign domestic workers in the Arab world who face abuse at the hands of employers, human rights groups say.
Long considered an issue in the oil-rich Persian Gulf Arab states, the abuse of foreign housemaids has begun also gaining scrutiny in Lebanon, where there are an estimated 150,000 foreign domestic workers, mostly from Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Ethiopia.
In a report, New York-based Human Rights Watch criticized several Persian Gulf Arab states and Lebanon for failing to curb the abuses and protect Sri Lankan migrant women workers, who number about 80,000.
Nadim Houry, Lebanon researcher at HRW, said the government exposes foreign housemaids to abuse by refusing to guarantee them a weekly rest day, maximum daily work hours or freedom of movement.
Authorities “aren’t investigating and prosecuting those who break the law,“ Houry said. And domestic workers who do lodge a complaint will often find themselves accused of theft or some other crime.
Maids are common in most homes in Lebanon, a country of 4 million people, and are often seen walking dogs, throwing out the garbage or tending to children at playgrounds. On Sundays, some churches hold special services for the workers.
But an alarming number face exploitation, rights groups say.
HRW said some housemaids work 16-21 hour days, seven days a week, without vacation or sick days--often for less than a third of a US dollar an hour. Their wages are often withheld and their passports routinely confiscated.

Razieh Tahmasebifar won a silver medal in 56kg category of Sanshou at the 9th World Wushu Championships on Saturday.

The more psychosocial stressors a person faces in daily life, the greater their heart disease risk is, and the relationship is particularly strong for women, a new study shows.
Women were also more likely to report a higher number of such stressors, Dr. Rebecca C. Thurston of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Dr. Laura D. Kubzansky of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston found. “Women more often experienced these clustered risk factors as opposed to men,“ Thurston told Reuters Health.
She and Kubzansky also found that the gender difference in the stress-health relationship they observed appeared to be because women with more psychosocial risk factors were also more likely to be obese.
“As a woman the more psychosocial risk factors you have the more likely you are to be obese and this in turn increases your risk of heart disease,“ Thurston explained. “For the men in this study, psychosocial risk was not really associated with obesity.“
Most studies have looked at the health effects of psychosocial disadvantages such as poverty, depression and single parenthood separately, the researchers note in their report in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine. Because people may have one or more of these stressors in their lives, the researchers looked at the effect of several together, including unemployment, divorce, death of a spouse, and high anxiety levels.
They evaluated these indicators of psychosocial disadvantage in 6,913 men and women who were followed for more than 22 years.
Having one indicator increased the likelihood of being diagnosed with heart disease during the course of the study by 28 percent, while having two or three boosted risk by 56 percent.
Individuals with four or more indicators of psychosocial disadvantage were 2.63 times as likely as those with no similar stressors to develop heart disease.
The risk rose with the number of disadvantage indicators, regardless of which ones were involved. The effect of psychological disadvantage on heart health was stronger for women, who were also more likely than men to be coping with several psychosocial stressors at once.

Women are expected to be absent from the workplace more than men, a new study has found.
Researchers at the Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia say that workplaces witness more female absenteeism because it’s considered a more socially acceptable norm, reported ANI.
According to the authors, this belief could promote workplace discrimination in wages and advancement for women.
“The results suggest that a distinct absence culture exists for women that might legitimize their absenteeism, but it might also perpetuate gender stereotypes and lead to gender discrimination,“ Live Science quoted lead researcher Eric Patton, as saying.
For the study, Patton and Saint Joseph’s colleague Gary Johns examined nearly 3,000 New York Times articles dealing with work absence from 1851 through 2004, focusing on the 167 news items that mentioned women.
On the whole, they found absence by women was less likely to be linked with punishment than men, and women’s non-attendance was rarely noted as deviant.
Most of the articles (101 of the 167) cited domestic and family responsibilities to describe women’s absence. Articles repeatedly talked about the need for corporate childcare. In the 1980s and 1990s, articles also advocated alternative work arrangements for women, such as part-time schedules and flex-time, to help lessen absenteeism.

The number of women suffering from depression in their 30s is increasing in S. Korea, due to their late “independence from their parents“ and “individualism,“ according to a report.
The number of women receiving psychiatric help has been increasing every year. Though it is commonly accepted that many women going through menopause suffer depression, an increasing numbers of women in their 30s are suffering the malady and are seeking counseling, reported Koreatimes.co.kr.
Last year, 331 women in their 20s and 30s visited Severance Hospital in Seoul for mental health check ups. The comparative figure stood at 495 for those in their 40s and 50s.
At Samsung Hospital, 627 women in their 30s sought psychological treatment from January to October this year, but a hospital spokesperson said the corresponding number of middle-aged women is dropping.
Prof. Namkoong Ki of the hospital said the root cause of their feelings of inadequacy is quite different from that of middle aged women. While the latter face a sense of emptiness after raising children and then going through menopause leading to feelings of insecurity and being considered “unfeminine,“ the younger generation is suffering from something else.
“They were always told what to do by their parents. But once they become parents, they don’t know how to deal with their own children. They are stressed by their in-laws, husband and wife relationships as well as their role in society, and they feel vulnerable,“ he said.
Especially those who are highly educated and more individualistic are extra vulnerable to depression. They tend not to share their problems with others, while deep inside they are suffering, experts said.

Madinah officials are gearing up for the forthcoming Hajj, where pilgrims visit the Prophet’s Mosque on their way to the pilgrimage, Arabonline reported.
Abdul Wahid Hattab, spokesman at the presidency of the Prophet’s Mosque Affairs, said that new arrangements are being drawn up to accommodate women in Al-Rawda area after night prayers.
Al-Rawda is a very special area in the heart of the Prophet’s Mosque, which extends from the tomb of the Prophet (PBUH) to his pulpit.
“During peak time women are getting a wider area in Al-Rawda,“ Hattab said. “We have also added a night period to make it easy for women to go in at night. The night period starts after Isha prayer until 12 am this is beside the morning period and the noon period.“ The morning period is from 7 am to 11 am while the noon period is from 1.30 pm to 3 pm.