A global policy-making body, the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), dedicated exclusively to the promotion of gender equality and the advancement of women. Every year, representatives of Member States gather at the United Nations Headquarters in New York to evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women worldwide.

CAIRO - At first Samira Ibrahim was afraid to tell her father that Egyptian soldiers had detained her in Tahrir Square in Cairo, stripped off her clothes, and watched as she was forcibly subjected to a "virginity test."
But when her father, a religious conservative, saw electric prod marks on her body, they revived memories of his own detention and torture under President Hosni Mubarak's government. "History is repeating itself," he told her, and together they vowed to file a court case against the military rulers, to claim "my rights," as Ms. Ibrahim later recalled.
That case has proved successful so far. For the first time last month, an administrative court challenged the authority of the military council and banned such "tests." Ms. Ibrahim will ask a military court on Sunday to hold the officers accountable.

For the moment, the Arab revolutions have marginalized the Palestinian issue. For the first time in over half a century, the agenda of the Arab world--both that of governments and the people--is not determined by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but by the social and political difficulties they are facing: poverty, economic development and democracy. And when the Palestinian issue is marginalized, the Gaza Strip is pushed to the margins of the margins.

After speaking to rights defenders about his torture, Oun is re-arrested

The BCHR is greatly concerned for the life and well-being of 18 year old Hassan Ali Oun. Hassan was arrested yesterday, the 3rd of January, from the institution he studies in, this is the fifth time young Hassan has been arrested for political reasons in the past year and a half. During previous times he spent in detention Hassan was subjected to torture. One of the torture methods he was subjected to was being repeatedly raped by insertion of a hose in his anus. A couple of days before his last arrest Hassan spoke to the head of the BCHR giving details of the torture he was subjected to and showed the Center messages sent to his phone threatening him that if he is caught again he would "be raped until he becomes a martyr".