There are instances that can be cited to underscore the problems we speak of. Across large tracts of Africa, women are still prisoners to the traditional tribal norms of societies. Issues dating back to a hoary past and the like continue to be gross forms of an abuse of the female personality. While there are all the arguments to the effect that a growing sense of awareness of their rights has lately defined women's understanding of their position, there are yet the silent ways in which discrimination against them works. Away from Africa, there are other places where women continue to be subjected to plain humiliation, in forms that may range from predicament of the kind Pakistan's Mukhtaran Mai has suffered from to deprivation in the workforce. It may sound strange, but it is nevertheless true that there are still organizations which clearly and unabashedly state, as they invite applications for jobs, that women need not apply. Add to that the absolutely criminal act of some families in upholding honour killings as a way of removing what they think is the social stigma brought on them by a daughter or sister's decision to marry the man of her choice. Such realities have troubled minds in recent times. More disturbingly, as the UN chief has noted, the toleration of violence against women under the cover of an upholding of cultural norms threatens to set at naught all efforts to improve the quality of life for women.

It is against such a background that Ban Ki-moon's call for a single agency to deal with women's issues must be studied. Indeed, the November 2006 recommendation that three existing UN bodies geared to handling women's issues be transformed into a single agency is an idea that could be worked on. A constant monitoring and review of women's conditions, by such a body, will have a salutary effect all around.