While Aung San Suu Kyi remains the most widely-known woman suppressed for her political views in Burma, the jails in that military-ruled country continue to be filled by lesser-known women dissidents being held on a range of questionable charges.

Mid-February saw the latest group of female political activists thrown into jail with a two-year prison term, including hard labour, for a "crime" they committed four months ago – donating religious literature to a Buddhist monastery, an act that the junta deemed as "disturbing the peace."

The Minister of Women, Children, Youth and People with Disabilities, has called for an end to the projection of negative and degrading images of women in the media.

Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya was speaking at the United Nations' Session on the 15 Year Global Review of the Beijing Declaration in New York. The declaration calls upon the media to refrain from presenting women as inferior beings and exploiting them as sexual objects and commodities.

Ms. Mu Sochua is a member of a new generation of women who are working their way into the political systems of countries across Asia and elsewhere, from local councils to national assemblies and cabinet positions.

A former minister of women’s affairs, she did as much as anyone to put women’s issues on the agenda of Cambodia as it emerged in the 1990s from decades of war and mass killings. But she lost her public platform in 2004 when she broke with the government, and she is now finding it as difficult to promote her ideas as it is to simply gain attention as a candidate.

The role of women in the lead-up to the March 7 polls -- and the roles they will attain in the next government -- are a barometer of the direction Iraq is heading as it struggles to end violence and create stability ahead of a U.S. withdrawal. Iraq's next parliament will have at least 82 female members -- but only, most would argue, because the constitution drafted under U.S. influence in 2005 guarantees them a quarter of seats.