NOTE: Some readers may find the text and images on this list disturbing. For most of our readers, the biggest troubles in their lives are petrol prices, long working hours, and increasing food costs. For many women in the world, these are the least of their concerns. Terrible atrocities are committed against untold numbers of women around the world every day and for most of these women, justice will never be served. This is a list of the worst of the atrocities. In no particular order:
SE7EN: BRIDE KIDNAPPINGBride kidnapping is a common practice in Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. When it is time to get married in Kyrgyzstan, a man or his family will pick a woman and she will be kidnapped. The prospective groom and his male relatives or friends or both abduct the girl and take her to the family home, where the older women of the family try to get her to accept the marriage. Some families will keep the girl hostage for several days to break her will.
In Ethiopia and Rwanda it is quite brutal, where the man kidnaps the woman and rapes her. The family of the woman either then feels obliged to consent to the union, or is forced to when the kidnapper impregnates her, as no one else would marry a pregnant woman.
S6X: HONOR KILLINGHonor Killing is a punitive murder, committed by members of a family against a female member of their family whom the family and/or wider community believes to have brought dishonor upon the family. A woman is usually targeted for: refusing an arranged marriage, being the victim of a sexual assault, seeking a divorce (even from an abusive husband), or committing adultery or fornication.
in India, more than 5,000 brides are killed annually because their marriage dowries are considered insufficient.
5IVE: BRIDE BURNINGBride Burning is a form of domestic violence practiced in parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and other countries located on or around the Indian subcontinent. In bride burning cases it is alleged that a man, or his family, douses his wife with kerosene, gasoline, or other flammable liquid, and sets the woman alight, leading to death by fire.
4OUR: ACID ATTACKSAcid Attacks are a violent phenomena that primarily occur in Afghanistan. Perpetrators of these attacks throw acid at their victims (usually at their faces), burning them. The consequences include permanent scarring of the face and body as well as potential blindness. Acid attacks are sometimes referred to as vitriolage.