Recently, on March 8, International Women's Day was celebrated.
U.S. women may live relatively happy, comfortable lives but unfortunately for millions of women around the globe, there wasn't much to celebrate.
To help out, please donate to WOMEN FOR WOMEN at
http://www.womenforwomen.org. Or Amnesty International at
http://www.amnesty.org/ There are also several other organizations.
ACCORDING TO 3 SEPARATE REPORTS, THE WORST PLACES FOR WOMEN TO LIVE ARE THE FOLLOWING:
I. The UNDP rankings for the worst are the following 10 African countries:
168 Congo (Democratic Republic of the)
169 Ethiopia
170 Chad
171 Central African Republic
172 Mozambique
173 Mali
174 Niger
175 Guinea-Bissau
176 Burkina Faso
177 Sierra Leone
II. However, according to such sources as Amnesty International and an Australian organization, several ISLAMIC COUNTRIES appear to be the worst places on earth to be a woman.
See:
http://www.atheistfoundation.org.au/islamrights.htm
III. The Star World News gives a third list.
See: http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/326354
• 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. Foraging for food and water exposes women to yet more violence. Without money, transport or connections, they have no way of escape.
• IRAQ: The U.S.-led invasion to "liberate" Iraq from Saddam Hussein has imprisoned women in an inferno of sectarian violence that targets women and girls. The literacy rate, once the highest in the Arab world, is now among the lowest as families fear risking kidnapping and rape by sending girls to school. Women who once went out to work stay home. Meanwhile, more than 1 million women have been displaced from their homes, and millions more are unable to earn enough to eat.
• 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 labelled bokshi, meaning witches. A low-level civil war between government and Maoist rebels has forced rural women into guerrilla groups.
• SUDAN: While Sudanese women have made strides under reformed laws, the plight of those in Darfur, in western Sudan, has worsened. Abduction, rape or forced displacement have destroyed more than 1 million women's lives since 2003. The janjaweed militias have used systematic rape as a demographic weapon, but access to justice is almost impossible for the female victims of violence.
• 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.
• Other countries in which women's lives are significantly worse than men's include GUATEMALA, where an impoverished female underclass faces domestic violence, rape and the second-highest rate of HIV/AIDS after sub-Saharan Africa. An epidemic of gruesome unsolved murders has left hundreds of women dead, some of their bodies left with hate messages. There is also NORTH KOREA, PAKISTAN, SAUDI ARABIA, and SOMALIA.
Again, please help out by giving to Amnesty International, Women for Women or several other international charity organizations.