WOMEN’S RIGHTS

1. WOMEN’S RIGHTS BY: Yezdanpece ArianaLihari

2. THAILAND The 1997 Constitution increased legal protections for women and persons with disabilities; however, some inequities in the law remained, and some protections were not enforced. Violence and societal discrimination against women were problems. Societal discrimination against hill tribes and religious and ethnic minorities continued. There were reports of forced labor and child labor. Trafficking in women and children, coerced prostitution and labor were serious problems. Rape is illegal. However, a husband may not be prosecuted for spousal rape. According to academics and women's rights activists, rapes and domestic assaults were underreported, in part because law enforcement agencies widely were perceived to be incapable of bringing perpetrators to justice.

3. THAILAND Around 80,000 women and children have been sold into Thailand's sex idustry since 1990, with most coming from Burma, China's Yunan province and Laos. Women from Thailand are trafficked particularly to the Netherlands and Germany of the European Union, Japan, Austrlia, India, Malaysia and nations of the Middle East. Domestic violence against women was a significant problem; reliable reports indicated that domestic abuse occurred across all social classes. Specific laws concerning domestic violence have not been enacted. Police did not enforce laws against such violence vigorously, and domestic violence often went unreported, and the police often were reluctant to pursue reports of domestic violence.

4. CHINA As men go to the cities to work, women are left behind to farm the land, care for the children and the elderly, as well as, maintain the household. The loneliness and desperation of these women has given China the highest number of female suicides in the world with the bottle of pesticide found in each house a tempting solution to escaping a miserable situation. Rural women are also in the most vulnerable position to be trafficked. Often sold into sexual slavery by a family member, they are taken to cities across China and across borders. These women are subjected to abuse, high rates of cervical cancer, and STDs that go untreated.

5. CHINA In China, domestic abuse is considered a “family matter” and as such it is often ignored or overlooked, even by police who tend to avoid the problem until serious injuries are incurred or death. Statistics from the All-China Women’s Federation report that 94% of domestic abuse victims are women, and that one-quarter of all divorces are attributed to domestic abuse.

6. SAUDIA ARABIA All females must have a male guardian, typically a father or husband. The guardian has duties to, and rights over, the woman in many aspects of civic life. According to law, there should be physically and visually separate sections for the sexes at all meetings including weddings and funerals. Companies traditionally have been expected to create all-female areas if they hire women. Public transportation is segregated. Public places such as beaches, amusement parks, and ice-skating rinks are also segregated, sometimes by time, so that men and women attend at different hours.

7. SAUDIA ARABIA In general, women are not allowed to drive, although it is often tolerated in rural areas. On Nov. 6th, 1990, about 20 Saudi women illegally drove the streets of Riyadh in protest of the ban on Saudi women drivers. The women were eventually surrounded by curious onlookers and stopped by traffic cops, who took them into custody. They were released after their male guardians signed statements that they would not drive again. This act was repeated again this month, and again the women were jailed.

8. ABUSE

9. AFGHANISTAN The average Afghan girl will live to only 45 – one year less than an Afghan male. After three decades of war and religion-based repression, an overwhelming number of women are illiterate. More than half of all brides are under 16, and one woman dies in childbirth every half hour. Domestic violence is so common that 87 per cent of women admit to experiencing it. But more than one million widows are on the streets, often forced into prostitution. Afghanistan is the only country in which the female suicide rate is higher than that of males

10. AFGHANISTAN

11. UKRAINE Ukraine is currently one of the largest exporters of women to the international sex industry. More than 100,000 Ukrainian women, many of them minors, have been trapped and enslaved as prostitutes in the West. 1,000 Ukrainian women are in prostitution in Poland. 80 percent of women who go abroad for a better chance of work have no idea that they will be forced into prostitution. The increase in men buying women in prostitution has been accompanied by the increase of HIV/AIDS in the Ukraine. The number increased from 44 cases in 1994 to more than 15,000 in 1997, one of the biggest increases in the world.

12. NEPAL Early marriage and childbirth exhaust the country's malnourished women, and one in 24 will die in pregnancy or childbirth. Daughters who aren't married off may be sold to traffickers before they reach their teens. Widows face extreme abuse and discrimination if they're labeled ‘bokshi’, meaning witches. A low-level civil war between government and Maoist rebels has forced rural women into guerrilla groups.

13. DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO In the eastern DRC, a war that claimed more than 3 million lives has ignited again, with women on the front line. Rapes are so brutal and systematic that UN investigators have called them unprecedented. Many victims die; others are infected with HIV and left to look after children alone.

14. DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO Foraging for food and water exposes women to yet more violence. Without money, transport or connections, they have no way of escape.

15. AMERICA. Despite the fact that advocacy groups like NOW (National Organization for Women) have worked for two decades to halt the epidemic of gender-based violence and sexual assault, the numbers are still shocking. In 2005, 1,181 women were murdered by an intimate partner. That's an average of three women every day. Of all the women murdered in the U.S., about one-third were killed by an intimate partner. According to the National Crime Victimization Survey 232,960 women in the U.S. were raped or sexually assaulted in 2006. That's more than 600 women every day.

16. AMERICA. According to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, women experience about 4.8 million intimate partner-related physical assaults and rapes every year. Less than 20 percent of battered women sought medical treatment following an injury. Young women, low-income women and some minorities are disproportionately victims of domestic violence and rape. Women ages 20-24 are at greatest risk of nonfatal domestic violence, and women age 24 and under suffer from the highest rates of rape. The Justice Department estimates that one in five women will experience rape or attempted rape during their college years, and that less than five percent of these rapes will be reported.

17. AMERICA. African-American women face higher rates of domestic violence than white women, and American-Indian women are victimized at a rate more than double that of women of other races.

18. BIBLIOGRAPHY • Gobal Issues • http://www.globalissues.org/article/166/womens-rights • Coalition • http://www.catwinternational.org/factbook/Ukraine.php • Give2Asia Forum • http://www.give2asiaforum.org/home/2010/07/womens-issues-in-china-an-overview-from-1949-to-the-present.html • Human Rights Watch • http://www.hrw.org/en/category/topic/women • University of Rhode Island • http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/ukraine/ • US Department of State • http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27790.htm