Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu has called for the importance of focusing international efforts on discrimination against women and facing obstacles hindering their success. “Our efforts must remain focused at removing discrimination against women and addressing such impediments. This would require a determined, sustained and committed collective effort to devote our energies and resources towards bring women into the mainstream of the societies by creating conditions that would facilitate with regard to playing their due role as partners in development,” he said in a speech on the occasion of International Women’s Day Saturday. “Time for action to end violence against women,” he added.