Religious women suffer unique forms of violence and persecution because of their sex— and their ability to give birth to future generations discussed at the International Religious Freedom Summit held in Washington DC on June 28-30.
“When we talk about persecution of religious minority women and girls, we always talk about double vulnerability,” Dr. Ewelina U. Ochab, a human rights lawyer and the co-founder of Coalition for Genocide Response. “Vulnerability because of their religion or belief and, in addition, vulnerability because of their sex.”
These women, simply because they are women, face horrors from rape and forced marriage to forced birth control and sterilization. This type of persecution is not a product of the past; rather, it is ongoing.
At the IRF Summit, advocates focused on modern-day examples: Christian women in Nigeria; the Rohingyas, a Muslim minority in Burma (also known as Myanmar); Shia Hazaras, an ethnic-religious minority in Afghanistan; Uyghurs, a predominantly-Muslim ethnic minority in China; and the Yazidis, an ethnic-religious minority in Iraq.
Some also pointed to the suffering of women and girls in countries such as Pakistan and Ukraine.