An article by IANSA woman, Binalakshmi Nepram, has been published in the Sunday Pioneer newspaper and includes details about her first-hand experience of gun violence in India and efforts to control small arms.

The latest edition of PRIO's 'Gender, Peace and Security Update' for 2011 has a special focus on the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize and highlights some of the many civil society events that took place in Oslo during the Nobel Days.

As a member of the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security, we are pleased to share the latest Monthly Action Points (MAP) for the UN Security Council for December 2011.

From 21 to 23 November 2011, the Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network and Control Arms Foundation of India organised a three day art and craft exhibition, around the theme 'Weaving Disarmament', to spread the message of peace and disarmament amid growing conflict. This article provides background information and shares key messages from the event.

This article in Open Democracy brings attention to the role of women in disarmament and the challenges they face in making their voices heard, and makes links to the work of IANSA Women. Calling for international action to stop to the construction of a military base in South Korea, Rebecca Johnson, Director of the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy, highlights the contradictions between the absence of women from discussions at a UN conference on disarmament and the activism of local women against plans to build the naval base in Jeju Island. She shows how the base threatens to destroy the livelihoods of the iconic women shellfish divers and raise levels of rape and prostitution in the surrounding villages.

From 10 - 13 October, the second international conference of the Sexual Violence Research Initiative was held in Cape Town, South Africa. During the four-day conference, people from around the world came together to debate, discuss and share new ideas and innovations for research on sexual violence.

Women in Cities International, in partnership with Red Mujer y Habitat and Centro de Estudios Urbano Regionales, is holding a free online seminar, ‘Introduction to Creating Safe and Gender Inclusive Cities’ as part of the Gender Inclusive Cities Programme. Gun violence perpetuates gender inequality and has a direct impact on how safe women feel in their daily lives at home, in their workplace and in public spaces.

Many thanks to IANSA women at the Eastern African Sub-regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women (EASSI) in Uganda for sharing this inspiring update about their work on gender and small arms in the region. EASSI is a lead institution in advocacy around the gender dimension of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW).

From 19 to 25 October 2011, four IANSA Women, Jasmin Nario Galace from the Center for Peace Education, The Philippines; Ema Tagicakibau from the Pacific Network for Peace and Disarmament in New Zealand; Jacqueline Ogega from Religions for Peace in the USA; and Mona Makhamreh from Manar for Human Development in Jordan, formed an IANSA Women's Network "resource practitioner team" and actively participated an online dialogue on faith-based peacebuilding from a gender perspective.