Uganda will pass a law banning female genital mutilation, which is rampant among pastoralist tribes in the country's eastern region, the president said in a statement Friday. "The way God made it, there is no part of a human body that is useless," President Yoweri Museveni told a gathering in the eastern Karamoja district. "Now you people interfere with God's work. Some say it is culture. Yes, I support culture but you must support culture that is useful and based on scientific information," he added. Last year, the ...

The US global women's ambassador said Friday impunity for attacks against women and girls in Afghanistan was intolerable and the government needed to provide them with better legal protection. Melanne Verveer, ambassador-at-large for women's issues, told reporters that she had delivered this message to President Hamid Karzai and other officials during a three-day visit. "These violations against human rights are intolerable," Verveer said. She cited among her examples an acid attack on schoolgirls in the southern city of Kandahar last year and the shooting of a woman provincial ...

A longtime advocate for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault was named to a new post Friday as a White House adviser on violence against women. In announcing the appointment of Lynn Rosenthal, Vice President Joe Biden said that creating the job allows the White House to revive a focus on domestic violence issues — which Biden said were not at the forefront during the Bush administration. "What I'm about to say is not a knock or ...