As the Global Week of Action Against Gun Violence gets underway from 11-17 June 2012, this very informative and detailed article highlights the need to improve policy and practice in order to keep guns out of the hands of domestic violence perpetrators, not only in the US, but globally - the central aim of the Disarm Domestic Violence campaign. It also shows the links between masculinity, guns and violence against women.

The project PROTECT aims at contributing to the prevention and reduction of the most serious forms of gender-based violence against girls, young women and their children, such as grievous bodily harm, homicide and attempted homicide, including so-called honour crimes and killings. The main results of the project are summarised in the report, ‘PROTECT - Identifying and Protecting High Risk Victims of Gender Based Violence – 2011.’

The Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network attempts to lift women above the trauma and agony faced in armed conflict by helping them to find ways to heal the scars that decades of violence have caused to the community, though a gender sensitive approach to the gun crisis.

In Colombia, the Red Nacional de Mujeres, a member of the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders has launched ‘Security Council Resolution 1325: Civil Society Monitoring Report (2011)’. Although Colombia does not have a National Action Plan on SCR 1325, several organisations are working to influence the implementation of SCR 1325 and to give visibility to women’s roles in the prevention of conflicts, promotion of justice for women victims, and incorporation of a gender perspective in programs at the national level. Laws and policies have been adopted to overcome armed conflict and address human rights violations.

This article by Maribel Gonzales is published in the Project Ploughshares Monitor, Spring 2012 Volume 33 Issue 1.

IANSA is a signatory to this open letter from the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security to UN Secretary General H.E. Mr. Ban Ki-moon about the upcoming appointment of a new Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict.

This article focuses on IANSA woman, Binalakshmi Nepram in India who works with Manipuri women who face a dual violence – when their men are killed and in the deprivation that follows.

Information about The Gun Free Kitchen Tables project has broadcast on ABC, the Australian national radio channel. Journalist Anne Barker has successfully summarised both the context and the key issues into this brief radio piece. Notably, it documents the words of Yaakov Amit, Head of the Firearms Licensing Division at Israel’s Ministry of Public Security, effectively revealing Israel’s oversized, dangerously unregulated – and (of course) armed – security guard industry, “The law to do with firearms … needs further amendment and reorganisation. … We're also checking to see if all places that are guarded now need to be.”

IANSA woman Alice Ukoko, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Women of Africa, has been recognised by Worldwide Who's Who for her work, dedication and leadership in support of women’s rights and gender equality.