* Every day, so-called "honor killings" of girls and women -- often by members of their own families, and even when they are victims of rape -- are unpunished, and even lauded, in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations. * In Africa and parts of Southeast Asia and the Middle East, each year an estimated 2 million girls are genitally mutilated -- another "moral" tradition that not only kills but exacts a terrible lifelong toll of disease and sexual dysfunction from those who survive. * In China and India, millions of baby girls have been killed or abandoned. * Indeed, female infanticide, selective female malnutrition and medical neglect of girls, common in many world regions, can be so severe that, according to a U.N. Human Development Report, girls ages 2 to 4 die at nearly twice the rate of boys in India's Punjab state. * According to a World Health Organization report, 20 percent of women have suffered sexual abuse as children. * According to another U.N. report, thousands of girl children are enslaved -- often offered for sale by members of their own families -- in the global sex industry. * Even in these United States, more women are killed by their husbands or boyfriends than by automobile accidents. * And domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women, according to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. |
Why is all this allowed to go unnoticed? And how in the world do we fix it?
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