During a week with women's issues unusually high up the agenda, the lack of progress for millions is frustrating

During a week when women's issues have featured unusually high on the agenda, culminating in Mother's Day and encompassing both International Women's Day and the 54th UN Commission on the Status of Women, we feel compelled to point out the lack of progress for millions of our sisters across the developing world who are denied basic human rights.

Two-thirds of all children denied school are girls. Of the world's 876 million illiterate adults, 75% are women. Women earn only 10% of the world's income, yet work two-thirds of the world's working hours.

Domestic violence is the biggest cause of injury and death to women worldwide. Women hold only 14% of the world's parliamentary seats.

While we join in the celebrations for Mother's Day today we can't forget the women dying needlessly in childbirth, or as the first and last victims of conflict, watching their daughters grow up without hope of change and suffering unpunished abuse at the hands of men who are charged to protect them.

We urge men and women for whom such circumstances are unimaginable to challenge their governments to make a priority of the lives of these silent millions, by linking development money with gender empowerment and holding leaders to account for denying 50% of their populations the basic rights we take for granted. It's to our communal shame that the Beijing Platform for Action, Millennium Development Goal No 3, UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and the African Union Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa all remain largely unfulfilled. The AU has declared 2010-2020 "the African women's decade". Join us in our fight to ensure that in 10 years these aren't more redundant slogans that leave suffering women's lives untouched.

Without the liberation of women in the developing world there can be no end to the cycle of violence and extreme poverty. The greatest asset of emerging nations is its female workforce. Our mission is to ensure they are given the tools with which to achieve their ambitions.

Colin and Livia Firth; Samantha Cameron; Sandra Kamen; Emma Freud; Esther Freud; Rupert Friend; Miriam Gonzalez; Noreena Hertz; Damon Albarn; Beverley Knight; Richard and Ruth Rogers; Keira Knightley; Yasmin Alibhai-Brown; Mishal Hussein; Henry Porter; Mirella Ricciardi; Lucy Siegle; Melanie Chisolm; Dr Scilla Elworthy; Jendaye Frazer; Kate Allen, Amnesty; Hadeel Ibrahim Mo Ibrahim Foundation; Brigid McConville White Ribbon Alliance UK; Marie Louise Baricako; Vanessa Branson; Pilar Brennan; Naomi Campbell; Marc Carter; Jo Cox; Nathalie Delapalme; Bineta Diop; Mariella Frostrup; Glenys Kinnock; Annie Lennox; Jason McCue; Elle MacPherson; Angelique Kidjo; Brigitte Lacombe; Karen 'Duff' Lambros; Ticky Monekosso; Thandi Orleyn; Karen Ruimy; Daphne Trimble; Shriti Vadera; Jasmine Whitbread - all Femme Africa Solidarité Trust (Fast)

No, affairs do not help marriage

Sarah Harding-Roberts

Cardiff

So wrong about Paul Scott

Winning the Booker was a major event for him, and not only would he have leapt at the chance to attend in person, had he been able, but the prize money, too (£5,000 – the last year at that rate before it went up to £10,000), would have been a godsend had he lived to benefit from it. His dire financial situation during most of his writing life, and especially the last years, had been the main reason for accepting the teaching post in the US. He simply could not afford to turn down the dollars on offer for two semesters there.

Sally Scott

Eye, Suffolk

Take it in the right spirit

I must defend Arthur Koestler from the various charges of entertaining increasingly "crackpot theories" that have recently been quoted in the press with the release of his latest biography. He and his wife visited some relatives of my husband's who were experiencing "paranormal" events. During their short visit Arthur and Cynthia, (with Prof Arthur Ellison from City university) soon put the family at their ease. Because he had enough intellectual curiosity to travel to a northern town to investigate these phenomena, and then to bequeath money for a chair in parapsychology at Edinburgh university, he is to be admired rather than insulted. A few eminent scientists are now working in the field and I hope such studies will uncover the laws of physics which give rise to such rare phenomena.

name and address supplied

Oh, what a tangled web

Britain is the target of 300 significant cyber-attacks on government computer systems annually according to Lord West of Spithead, who fears that hackers could disable our infrastructure ("Britain fends off flood of foreign cyber-attacks", News). Our government responds by setting up the "Office of Cyber Security". Wouldn't it be better to admit: "Come back, Gary McKinnon, your country needs you!"

Lesley Kay

London NW1