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Clinton says violence against women remains a 'global pandemic'

2 hours ago by ■ Kay Mathews






According to The Washington Post, on Friday U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told delegates to the U.N. Commission on that Status of Women:

Women and girls are bought and sold to settle debts and resolve disputes. They are raped as both a tactic and a prize of war. They are beaten as punishment for disobedience and as a warning to other women who might assert their rights.

Further, Clinton asserted that violence against women remains a "global pandemic." Clinton considers the "subjugation" of women to be "a threat to the national security of the United States" and to the world. An article in the Christian Science Monitor reports that Clinton "identified equality for the world’s women and girls as the central challenge that will determine the peace and progress of the 21st century."

Clinton indicated, however, that some progess has been made since the 1995 Beijing Declaration outlining women's social, political and economic rights. Specifically, Clinton mentioned access to employment, health care and education.

Even with those gains, however, "Women are still the majority of the world's poor, the uneducated, the unhealthy, the unfed. In too many places, women are treated not as full and equal human beings with their own rights and aspirations, but as lesser creatures," Clinton said.

Amnesty International has recently criticized the United States for its lack of maternal health care, which has resulted in a "soaring " number of maternal deaths. The Washington Post cites a statement released by Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA, in which he wrote: "Mothers die not because the United States can't provide good care, but because it lacks the political will to make sure good care is available to all women."

Continues @ DigitalJournal.com

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Gender equality indeed the central challenge of the 21st century.

-- Edited by Sanders on Sunday 14th of March 2010 12:07:09 AM