WUNRN
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
HRW WOMEN'S RIGHTS
"Our duty as activists is to expose and denounce as human rights violations
those practices and policies that silence and subordinate women. We reject
specific legal, cultural, or religious practices by which women are
systematically discriminated against, excluded from political participation and
public life, segregated in their daily lives, raped in armed conflict, beaten in
their homes, denied equal divorce or inheritance rights, killed for having sex,
forced to marry, assaulted for not conforming to gender norms, and sold into
forced labor. Arguments that sustain and excuse these human rights abuses -
those of cultural norms, "appropriate" rights for women, or western imperialism
- barely disguise their true meaning: that women's lives matter less than men's.
Cultural relativism, which argues that there are no universal human rights and
that rights are culture-specific and culturally determined, is still a
formidable and corrosive challenge to women's rights to equality and dignity in
all facets of their lives."
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