United Nations Radio

Women: a weekly 14-minute news magazine that looks at issues affecting women around the world

Imrana Jalal

Like women and girls everywhere, women in the countries of the Pacific Islands are struggling to claim their rights and to live lives free of violence. At this month's Commission on the Status of Women, I met Imrana Jalal, a lawyer from Fiji who is the Gender and Human Rights Advisor at the Pacific Regional Rights Resource Team. A founding member of the NGO, the Fiji Women's Rights Movement, Imrana told me about some of the specific difficulties women in the Pacific face in reclaiming their human rights.

Commission on the Status of Women

Impressions of UN meeting on women

Imrana was one of thousands of women at the CSW, as the Commission on the Status of Women is called, all with experiences, ideas and wishes for their communities. On the CSW's last day, UN Radio's Kate Adair took an informal sampling of what some of the women felt about how the two-week session had gone, with its theme of equal responsibility between men and women for care-giving, and she prepared this report.

A Ugandan AIDS activist speaks out

woman living with AIDS

In Uganda, a draft law that would force HIV-positive people to reveal their status to sexual partners has come under fire from AIDS activists. Many believe that applying criminal law to HIV-risk behavior will hamper their prevention efforts, and even allow the government to invest less in educational campaigns. UN Radio's Kate Adair asked Agnes Atim Apea, who is executive director of the National Community of Women Living with AIDS in Uganda and who is herself HIV-positive, about the bill and about her efforts to raise awareness about AIDS.

Producer: Diane Bailey