Baz Ratner / Reuters

A woman looks at men praying from behind a metal screen at the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem's Old City on April 11, 2013. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to consider liberalizing access to the Western Wall, officials said on Wednesday, citing concern that police-enforced Orthodox controls on women worshipers alienate Jews abroad.

Michal Fattal / AP

Israeli women pray at the Western Wall on April 11, 2013. Israeli police have detained five women for performing religious rituals that ultra-Orthodox Jews say are reserved for men. A police spokesman said about 120 woman arrived for their monthly prayer service Thursday and five were detained for wearing prayer shawls.

Israeli police detained five women activists on Thursday at the Western Wall, one of Judaism's most sacred sites, for wearing prayer shawls, which Orthodox tradition sees as solely for men, a spokesman said.

The incident occurred during a monthly prayer session by the Women of the Wall, a group opposed to police-enforced Orthodox controls at the Jerusalem holy site, where worshipers are segregated by sex in accordance with strict Jewish tradition.

On Wednesday, officials said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was considering a plan to convert an old archaeological dig south of the wall to an area where men and women would be allowed to mix and worship freely. Read the full story.

Michal Fattal / AP

A woman is arrested for wearing a prayer shawl at the Western Wall on April 11, 2013.

Uriel Sinai / Getty Images

A couple covered with a 'Tallit' (traditional Jewish prayer shawl) pray at the Western Wall on April 11, 2013.

Michal Fattal / AP

Women pray at the Western Wall on April 11, 2013.

Baz Ratner / Reuters

Police officers detain an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man at the Western Wall on April 11, 2013, after he burned a book belonging to the Women of the Wall, a group opposed to police-enforced Orthodox controls at the Jerusalem holy site.

Related:

Controversy over dance studio's curtains illustrates battle for soul of Israeli society

Gender segregation on the rise in Israel

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Prisoners in their cell at Badam Bagh, Afghanistan's central women's prison, in Kabul. A total of 202 women are imprisoned in the six-year-old jail, the majority of them in connection to so-called "moral" crimes.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

A prisoner with her child.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Mariam, who shot the man who raped her, has spent the past three months in Badam Bagh prison without any idea of why she was imprisoned, what charges she faces or when she can leave.

Lost and alone in a strange city Mariam called the only person she knew, her husband's cousin. She had left her home in Afghanistan's northern Kunduz province, fleeing her husband's relentless and increasingly vicious beatings. The man promised to help, but too busy to come himself he sent a friend who took her to a house, held a gun to her head and raped her.

Finished with her he settled in front of a TV set, the gun on a table by his side. Choosing her moment, Mariam picked up the gun, shot her assailant in the head and turned the gun on herself.

"Three days later I woke up in the hospital," she said, shyly removing a scarf from her head to reveal a partially shaved head and a long jagged scar that ran almost the length of her head where the bullet grazed her scalp.

From the hospital Mariam was sent to a police station and from there to Badam Bagh, Afghanistan's central women's prison, where she told her story to The Associated Press. For the past three months Mariam has been waiting to find out what charges she faces.

Mariam is one of 202 women living in the six-year-old jail. The majority are serving sentences of up to seven years for leaving their husbands, refusing to accept a marriage arranged by their parents, or choosing to leave their parents' home with a man of their choice — all so-called "moral" crimes, says the prison's director general Zaref Jan Naebi. Read the full story.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Adia, 27, left her husband, a drug addict, seeking shelter with her parents. They told her to go home to her husband, who had followed her demanding she return. She went to court to seek help but instead they sentenced her to six years in prison. Seven months pregnant, Adia will have her baby in jail.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

A prisoner hanging up laundry on a small patch of open space surrounded by a razor-topped fence.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

A prisoner outside her cell.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Prisoner Nuria with her infant son. "When I went to court for the divorce, instead of giving me a divorce, they charged me with running away," Nuria said. The man she wanted to marry was also charged and is now serving time in Afghanistan's notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Children walking through the prison. 62 children live with their imprisoned mothers in the jail.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Fauzia is the oldest woman in the jail and has already served seven years. She will serve a 17 year sentence for killing her husband and her daughter-in-law. "I was in one room. I came into the next room and they were there having sexual relations. I found a big knife and killed them both," she said in a voice empty of emotion.

Editor's note: Pictures taken on March 28, 2013 and made available to NBC News today.

Slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

Rahmat Gul / AP

More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.

Launch slideshow

Related:

Newlywed Afghan beheaded for her refusal to become prostitute

Afghanistan's female powerhouses: a rapper, a colonel and 'mother' to hundreds

Afghan artists use graffiti to depict violence and injustice of women's lives

Victor R. Caivano / AP

A protester hurls a stone at police officers during a protest against the acquittal of 13 people accused in the disappearance of a young woman in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Dec. 12, 2012.

Victor R. Caivano / AP

Demonstrators and police officers clash during a protest against the acquittal of 13 people accused in the disappearance of a young woman in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2012.

The Associated Press reports — The acquittal on Tuesday of 13 people accused in the disappearance of Marita Veron, a young woman who was allegedly kidnapped and forced into prostitution for "VIP clients," spread shock and outrage across Argentina on Wednesday, prompting street protests and calls by political leaders to impeach the three judges who delivered the verdict.

Many called the ruling a setback for Argentina's efforts to combat sex trafficking, which began largely as a result of Susana Trimarco's one-woman, decade-long quest to find her missing daughter, Maria de los Angeles "Marita" Veron. Her attorneys said she would pursue appeals.

Susana Trimarco via AP

Susana Trimarco, right, poses with her daughter Marita Veron and her granddaughter Micaela, daughter of Marita, in 2002.

Trimarco was a housewife who paid scant attention to the news until her daughter, Marita, disappeared. After getting little help from police, Trimarco launched her own investigation after receiving a tip that Marita may have been abducted and forced into sex slavery. Trimarco visited brothels seeking clues and the search took an additional goal: rescuing sex slaves and helping them start new lives. But years of searching haven't led Trimarco to Marita. Read the full story.

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EPA

Contestant Duangjai Jansaunoi, 23, takes part in the 'Thailand's Got Talent' TV show in Bangkok, Thailand on June 17, 2012.

Thailand's Ministry of Culture is investigating whether a TV talent show broke censorship laws after one of its contestants painted a canvas with her breasts, The European Pressphoto Agency reports.

Duangjai Jansaunoi, 23, drew a yellow outline of a man on a canvas, stripped off her shirt, poured paint over her breasts and proceeded to fill in the picture.

Watch a video of Jansaunoi's performance at MSN Now

Two out of the three judges on 'Thailand's Got Talent', both of them men, voted in favour of Duangjai moving on to the second round of the competition. 

Summoning the show's producers to explain themselves, Culture Minister Sukumol Kunplome said Monday that the incident was "very shocking".

Follow @msnbc_pictures

EPA

Duangjai Jansaunoi with her finished painting.

Abdelhak Senna / AFP - Getty Images

Morocco's Solidarity, Women and Family minister Bassima Hakkaoui, the only woman in the new Islamist-led government, speaks during a debate about underage marriage in parliament in Rabat on April 16, 2012, next to Justice minister Mustafa Ramid.

Abdelhak Senna / AFP - Getty Images

Hamida, the sister of Amina Al Filali, holds a poster of her sister during a sit-in protest outside the local court in Larache that had approved the marriage on March 15, 2012.

Morocco's parliament has been debating a controversial law that allows rapists to marry their underage victims after the suicide of a teenage girl last month raised doubts about the effectiveness of reforms to women's rights brought in by King Mohammed VI. 

The North African country's Islamist-led government has been urged by human rights groups to amend article 475 of the penal code, which allows a rapist to marry his victim if she is a minor as a way of avoiding prosecution. 

Sixteen-year-old Amina El-Filali killed herself by swallowing rat poison on March 10 after being severely beaten during a six-month forced marriage to the man who raped her.

--Reuters contributed to this report

• Read more about Amina el-Filali and the demands for a change in the law in Edward Cody's report for the Washington Post

Oded Balilty / AP

People outside a dance studio watch dancers perform with the curtains open for the first time in three years in Jerusalem, Israel, on Nov. 21.

The Kolben Dance Group opened the curtains at its Jerusalem dance studio last Monday, allowing passers-by to see through the building's large picture windows as its dancers engaged in rehearsals for upcoming performances.

The move would seem uncontroversial, but the dance studio's curtains have become a symbolic front in what the Associated Press today described as a battle for the soul of Israeli society.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz said that the curtains had been kept closed for several years, reportedly under pressure from the local municipality and members of the ultra-Orthodox community who had also threatened the company's members. The sight of the dancers might inflame the passions of men, some believed.

Oded Balilty / AP

People are reflected in a window as they watch dancers perform in a dance studio in Jerusalem on Nov. 21.

Read more in the AP's report on the wider cultural and political conflict which pits radicalized religious activists and conservative lawmakers against secular, liberal Israelis.

Previously on PhotoBlog: Gender segregation on the rise in Israel

The AP reports from NEW DELHI:

It was to be a rare moment of camaraderie and celebration for India's marginalized eunuchs. Thousands had traveled to New Delhi to participate in a ceremony to honor deceased friends and to pray for the health of all children.

Then a fire erupted in a huge makeshift tent Sunday night. Panic broke out and 15 eunuchs were killed and 36 others were injured, fire officials said.

Kevin Frayer / AP

Indian eunuchs wait outside the mortuary of a local hospital to claim the bodies of friends killed in a fire Sunday evening, in New Delhi, India, on Nov. 21. The blaze happened during a gathering of thousands of eunuchs at a prayer ceremony and feast held once every five years at a fairground in the Nandnagary neighborhood of east Delhi.

Kevin Frayer / AP

Eunuchs and police stand at the gate of a fairground and the site of a burned tent at the scene of the fire on Nov. 21.

The fire was likely caused by an electrical short, fire officials and witnesses said. Acrid smoke hung in the air Monday and small groups of eunuchs were allowed to enter the cordoned-off area to salvage what was left of their belongings. Hundreds of others gathered outside to gather news of their friends and console each other.

Kevin Frayer / AP

A eunuch shouts to keep people away from the scene of the fire on Nov. 21.

The term eunuch, or hijra, is used in India to describe transvestites, transsexuals and others who identify themselves as neither male nor female but as a member of a third gender. Some have had their male genitalia removed. They traditionally survive by begging, dancing at weddings or blessing newborn babies and are frequently subjected to discrimination.

While the community is often mocked, their prayers and good wishes are considered powerful by most Indians.

Kevin Frayer / AP

A eunuch is comforted as she mourns a friend killed in the fire, outside a hospital in New Delhi on Nov. 21.

Kevin Frayer / AP

Eunuchs sit at the scene of the fire on Nov. 21.

The AP reports from JERUSALEM:

Posters depicting women have become rare in the streets of Israel's capital. In some areas women have been shunted onto separate sidewalks, and buses and health clinics have been gender-segregated. The military has considered reassigning some female combat soldiers because religious men don't want to serve with them.

This is the new reality in parts of 21st-century Israel, where ultra-Orthodox rabbis are trying to contain the encroachment of secular values on their cloistered society through a fierce backlash against the mixing of the sexes in public. Continue reading.

Sebastian Scheiner / AP

A torn poster of a woman is seen in Jerusalem, Israel, on Nov. 7.

Sebastian Scheiner / AP

An Ultra Orthodox Jewish man is reflected on a bus window in Jerusalem on Nov. 7.

Sebastian Scheiner / AP

An Ultra Orthodox Jewish man walks past a vandalized poster showing a woman, in Jerusalem on Nov. 7.

According to EPA, a number of women were arrested by Shariah police after they were caught not wearing veils or wearing jeans during a raid in Aceh today. Women appearing in public without a headscarf and wearing jeans trousers are regarded as violators of Islamic law in the Indonesian province.

Hotli Simanjuntak / EPA

An Acehnese youth, right, listens to a Shariah policewoman in Banda Aceh, Indonesia on May 5.

Hotli Simanjuntak / EPA

Acehnese youths Anis, left and Nila sit on a pick-up truck after being arrested by Shariah police in Banda Aceh on May 5.

Related content:
Indonesia province OKs stoning for adulterers
No tight pants for some Indonesian women

Mikhail Mordasov / AFP - Getty Images

Headscarf-wearing female students attend classes at the Grozny State Oil Institute in the capital of the Russian Caucasus region of Chechnya on March 21. Chechnya's Kremlin-appointed leader Ramzan Kadyrov, 34, has been quietly allowed to de-secularise his Muslim majority homeland. His hugely controversial decree tells female public servants how to dress in an Islamically-acceptable way at work, stating that women's heads should be covered with a headscarf.

Vladimir Isachenkov of AP reports from Grozny: The cars pull up in broad daylight. Security forces point guns at terrified women and shoot. It turns out they're paintball pellets, but still harsh punishment in Chechnya for leaving home without a headscarf.

Chechnya's strongman Ramzan Kadyrov has imposed an Islamic dress code on women, and his feared security forces have used paintball guns, threats and insults against those refusing to obey. In a 40-page report released earlier this month, Human Rights Watch condemned the campaign as a flagrant violation of women's rights and urged other nations to raise the issue with Moscow.

"The enforcement of a compulsory Islamic dress code on women in Chechnya violates their rights to private life, personal autonomy, freedom of expression, and freedom of religion, thought, and conscience," the report said. Continue reading.