On 24 and 25 November 2010 the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) organised an 'Expert workshop on the elimination of all forms of violence against women – challenges, good

Summary: This paper deals specifically with faith-based organizations (FBOs) delivering services with the aim of contributing to the debates on religious organizations’ engagement with questions of gender. The paper presents no conclusions or generic findings about this heterogeneous group of actors; instead, by flagging a series of conundrums, it questions the ways in which FBOs have been framed as positive agents for the advancement of gender equality.

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At a press conference held on 31 May 2010 during the , the Women's Initiatives for Gender Justice released an advocacy paper titled .  Joining Women's Initiatives' Executive Director Brigid Inder to speak at the launch of the paper were three women's rights activists from ICC conflict situations who comprised part of the Women's Initiatives delegation: Gladys Oyat, Greater North Women's Voices for Peace Network, from Kitgum, Northern Uganda; Jeanine Bandu, Director of the Collective of Indigenous and Vulnerable Households, from Goma, Eastern DRC; and Albertine Tonnet, Coordinator of the Women's Section of the United Trade Union, from Bangui, Central African Republic.  Susanah Sirkin, Deputy Director of the US-based NGO Physicians for Human Rights, also offered her reflections on the Call to Action.

At the press conference, women from the conflict situations spoke of the urgent need for justice through both international and national accountability mechanisms.  Gladys Oyat from Northern Uganda asked, 'Shall the (Ugandan) victims get justice within the given time frame? We have evidence in Uganda that sometimes issues of importance may not be taken with the seriousness they deserve. They start with high flames but soon die out like a candle in the wind. Who can give assurance to the hurting people that justice will be done as fast as possible?  Remember, Justice Delayed is Justice Denied.'  Read Gladys' full .

This article examines a particular variety of Islamic responses to the advent of the secular state in Asia. The secular state arose historically in Europe through the separation of church and state from the seventeenth century onwards. The notion of political secularism was brought to Asia (and elsewhere) through the experience of European colonialism. The post-colonial secular states of Asia are thus derived from experiences of European colonialism, even when such experiences did not result in total colonisation (for example, in China, Korea, Japan and Thailand). Although the secular politics of the new nation-states in the Asian region has been anti-colonial and nationalist in content, the secularism of politics nevertheless comes not from indigenous sources, but from historical origins in Europe, regardless of whether such secularism is democratic, fascist or communist.