Women bear the brunt of war, Amnesty International says [View All]

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LONDON (AFP) - Raped, treated as the sexual 'booty' of war or slain by indiscriminate bombings, women are too often the first victims of conflict, Amnesty International charged Wednesday in a report demanding legal redress.
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"Patterns of violence against women in conflict do not arise 'naturally' but are ordered, condoned or tolerated as a result of political calculations," its secretary general Irene Khan said in introducing the 120-page report on women in war.

Not only are women "considered as the legitimate booty of victorious army," the report said, but "the use of rape as a weapon of war is perhaps the most notorious and brutal way in which conflicts impact on women."
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Khan, the first women, the first Asian and the first Muslim to head Amnesty International, told AFP in an interview that "it's quite interesting to see that women rights have been used as justification for military intervention, in the cases of both Iraq and Afghanistan."
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041208/wl_afp/rights_amnesty_women_041208000947