In a speech in Kinshasa last week, the general secretary of the World Council of Churches challenged churches to end their denial of violence against women.

German churches' practical experience with confronting the issue of domestic violence will play an important role in a Peace Declaration of the World Council of Churches planned for 2011.

Domestic violence and what the church needs to do to respond to this problem topped the agenda for the recent second gathering of Central American Anabaptist Women Theologians.

Student Umedjon Sharifov uses blow-up dolls in his voluntary work for a Tajikistani non-governmental organization around the Central Asian country's third-largest city of Kulob and he shows videos against domestic violence to men and women.

The National Council of Churches USA's Justice for Women Working Group is working with people of faith across America in October 2007 to observe Domestic Violence Awareness Month and make sure the churches take the issue seriously.

In a symbolic act of ending the year that began with the first World Council of Churches general assembly in Latin America, WCC central committee moderator the Rev Dr Walter Altmann visited an interactive exhibition on domestic violence in downtown Porto Alegre/Brazil earlier this month (December 2006).