HUMAN first, then a proud IRANIAN

This blog represents the way I see some of the most significant events impacting the world and its citizens. This blog also represents how I react to the events as a member of humanity with a voice, a determined voice that insists to be heard. The voice of an Iranian who loves his country but his priority is humanity; humanity without border. I will say what I want to say, when I want to say it, and how I want to say it, but I will never lie. I will also listen; I promise.

March 08, 2004

March 8: International Womens' Day

It's March 8 again, the day that is specifically supposed to belong to women from all over the world. March 8s are coming and going but what is changing for women? Almost none. Women are still the main victims of violence and the most abused human beings. They are abused by the political, economical and religious systems, they are abused by friends and finally they are abused by their own families. In order to see how terrible this is, we all have to remember that our mothers are all women. Can we stand seeing them abused?

The latest figures released by the Amnesty International, are shocking. Just by looking at them, we can see how our mothers have been and are still being treated in this world of double inequalities for women. For more complete figures, see here.

Here are some of the numbers:

-In Egypt 35% of women reported being beaten by their husband at some point in their marriage.
-In Iraq at least 400 women and girls as young as eight were reported to have been raped in Baghdad during or after the war, since April 2003.
-In the USA a woman is battered, usually by her husband/partner, every 15 seconds
-In Bangladesh 50% of all murders are of women by their partners (-In Pakistan 42% of women accept violence as part of their fate; 33% feel too helpless to stand up to it; 19% protested and 4% took action against it.
-In France 25,000 women are raped per year. This number is 350,000 in the US.
-80% of the refugees are women and children.
-In Rwanda between 250,000 and 500,000 women, or about 20% of women, were raped during the 1994 genocide.
-In Iran 45 women under the age of 20 have been murdered in so-called "honour" killings by close relatives in Iran's majority ethnic Arab province of Khuzestan in a two-month period in 2003.
-In Egypt 47% of physically abused women never told anyone.
-In the USA 16% of women report rapes to the police; of those who do not, nearly 50 per cent of women would do so if they could be assured that their names and private details would not be released publicly.
-In Bangladesh 68% of women never told anyone about being beaten.
-In the United Kingdom 13% of all raped women report the assault to the police
-So called "honour" defences (partial or complete) are found in the penal codes of Peru, Bangladesh, Argentina, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, the West Bank and Venezuela.
-World-wide, over half of new HIV infections are occurring among young people between the ages of 15 to 24, and over 60% of HIV-positive youth between the ages of 15-24 are women.

|
Top iran blogs award

HUMAN first, then a proud IRANIAN

Top iran blogs