Economically, women are vastly underrepresented in the work force as employment is still limited to mostly the army and the police. The Women's Ministry barely has any budget allocations, which has led to the resignation of ministers (most notably, Nawal al-Samaraie, minister for women's affairs, tendered her resignation in February 2009). Girls have a high rate of illiteracy and often drop out of schools due to economic and security reasons. Domestic violence is increasing, as is trafficking in women, and the Iraqi government estimates there are up to 3 million widows in Iraq today.

Senator Pia Cayetano left the campaign trail in the Philippines momentarily to preside a special meeting of parliamentarians at the United Nations and to take part in another meeting with American legislators in Washington, DC.

Cayetano was elected President of the Coordinating Committee of Women Parliamentarians of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the highest position ever achieved by a Filipino in the 119-year-old IPU, considered as the United Nations of parliamentarians around the world.

A top Islamic cleric Wednesday welcomed the passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha, describing it as ‘a great step towards women’s empowerment’.

‘This is a great step towards women’s empowerment. I would urge Indian Muslim women to enter politics and get themselves elected to parliament and state assemblies. They will have to empower themselves,’ the Grand Mufti of Kashmir, Maulana Bashir-ud-Din, told reporters here.

Women in the Asia-Pacific region have little economic and political power, impacting economic growth prospects of developing nations, the United Nations said in a report released Monday.

According to the UN Asia-Pacific Human Development Report to mark International Women’s Day, the region ranked near the worst in the world on issues such as protecting women from violence or upholding their rights to property.

“The key message [of the report] is that to meet any development goals that a society sets, you need the full participation and involvement of women,” Helen Clark, head of the UN Development Program (UNDP), said.

Women in the Asia Pacific region have the lowest rates of representation in politics, employment and property ownership, a new report presented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has revealed.

The Asia Pacific Human Development report on gender, which was made public on the occasion of the 100th International Women’s Day today, revealed that women in the Asia Pacific region are socially, physically and economically backward and the progress remains slow particularly in South Asia.

The Minister of Women, Children, Youth and People with Disabilities, has called for an end to the projection of negative and degrading images of women in the media.

Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya was speaking at the United Nations' Session on the 15 Year Global Review of the Beijing Declaration in New York. The declaration calls upon the media to refrain from presenting women as inferior beings and exploiting them as sexual objects and commodities.

"Equal rights, equal opportunities, progress for all" is the theme for the celebration of International Women's Day at the United Nations in New York on Wednesday.
"To me, the conference served as a wake-up call. Although many Chinese women had received higher education and become mid-level managers, I was reminded of the challenges we still faced." as Li Xing writes on China Daily.