GAZA CITY, 16 March 2010 (IRIN) - Nahla*, aged 30, from Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, said she was physically and mentally abused for more than 10 years by her husband before being granted a divorce three months ago.

SAN’A, YEMEN—Some of Yemen's most influential Islamic leaders, including one the U.S. says mentored Osama bin Laden, have declared supporters of a ban on child brides to be apostates.

The Moroccan government has unleashed its latest weapon in the crusade against extremist interpretations of Islam -- female religious leaders. The government hopes that women might spread a more balanced and tolerant version of Islam.

At a landmark conference held recently in Ramallah in the occupied Palestinian territory, delegates were told of documented cases of “honour” crimes where women and girls had been poisoned, strangled, shot and forced to commit suicide by arelatives because their alleged behaviours had tarnished the family “honour”. These behaviours included talking on the phone with a man, being late or the mere rumour or supposition that an illicit behaviour may have happened.

Female Catholic priests, deemed excommunicate by Rome, buried two of their own this month, neither one in a Catholic cemetery. "They threw us away," says a surviving member of Roman Catholic Womenpriests, which marked its first deaths.

Women's empowerment is a process. It involves raising consciousness, building skills and reforming unjust laws that limit women's education, participation in decision making and economic independence. I.M.O.W. Global Council member Mahnaz Afkhami is president of Women's Learning Partnership, which strives to empower women by practicing and promoting their leadership and self-sufficiency.

After years of stymied efforts, the reform focus in Saudi Arabia is centering on women’s rights. A recent survey by the Researchers Center for Women’s Studies in Riyadh (Markaz Bahithat li Dirasat al-Mar’a) examining Saudi newspapers and websites showed that from mid January to mid February 2010 some 40 percent of articles in print media and 58 percent of articles on websites treated women’s issues. Empowering women has become a priority for local activists and various initiatives are springing up to secure their basic rights. The most recent and ambitious of these efforts is a national campaign, driven by local actors, calling for women’s participation in municipal elections scheduled for autumn 2011.

Amnesty International has criticized the Egyptian authorities' use of criminal defamation charges to silence and harass activists, after the trial of two leading human rights defenders and a prominent blogger started on Saturday.

A court in Cairo heard the case of the three men on charges of "defamation", "the use of threats" and "misuse of communication tools", after allegations of extortion were made by a judge in 2007.

Gamal Eid, Director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) and Ahmed Seif El-Islam Hamad, founder of the Hisham Mubarak Law Center (HMLC) both appeared before the Khalifa Court of Misdemeanour on Saturday.

LIMA – Preys of the machismo culture and domestic violence at home, Peruvian women also have to deal with a justice system that often justifies the behavior of the aggressor.

Last year – during which there was a 40-percent increase in cases of domestic violence compared with 2005 – there were 139 women slain and 64 injured, while in the first three months of this year, 29 women were murdered and attempts were made to kill another 17, according to figures from the Ministry of Women.