Women still battling gender bigotry worldwide

Nearly 62 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which proclaimed "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights," a few of the world's discriminatory laws against women are being progressively repealed in Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America. India and Malaysia have nullified their respective criminal laws allowing marital rape, while Haiti has abrogated its law permitting the murder by a husband of his wife in specific cases of adultery. South Korea has changed its law designating the man as head of the family, while Colombia has voided its discriminatory law setting 14 years as the minimum age of marriage for boys and 12 years for girls. And Pakistan has removed the evidentiary requirement of four male Muslim witnesses to prove rape. But still, there is a long way to go, as women worldwide continue to battle against gender bigotry, says Taina Bien-Aime, executive director of Equality Now, a New York-based international human rights organisation. In a report to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), which will hold a two-week session beginning Monday, Equality Now says that several other countries, including Mexico, Lesotho, Kuwait, Turkey, Romania, Serbia, Peru, France and Switzerland, have either repealed or amended laws that were clearly discriminatory against women.