Interesting news stories on International Women's Day. Seems that in some matters they're increasingly getting on top: certainly in France ("Are women just like men?") and Italy where...

"In a victory for Italian adulterers, the country's Supreme Court has ruled that it is acceptable for wives to lie in order to cover up an affair."

Sorry for such frivolity; there is of course a very serious message and something that get's my blood boiling more than anything else. Last year's UN message, "Ending Impunity for Violence against Women and Girls" [2008 link HERE has the message " Investing in Women and Girls"]

**Violence against women is the most common but least punished crime in the world.

**It is estimated that between 113 million and 200 million women are demographically "missing." They have been the victims of infanticide (boys are preferred to girls) or have not received the same amount of food and medical attention as their brothers and fathers.

**The number of women forced or sold into prostitution is estimated worldwide at anywhere between 700,000 and 4,000,000 per year. Profits from sex slavery are estimated at seven to twelve billion US dollars per year.

**Globally, women between the age of fifteen and forty-four are more likely to be maimed or die as a result of male violence than through cancer, malaria, traffic accidents or war combined.

**At least one out of every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime. Usually, the abuser is a member of her own family or someone known to her. Domestic violence is the largest form of abuse of women worldwide, irrespective of region, culture, ethnicity, education, class and religion.

**It is estimated that more than two million girls are genitally mutilated per year, a rate of one girl every fifteen seconds.

**Systematic rape is used as a weapon of terror in many of the world's conflicts. It is estimated that between 250,000 and 500,000 women in Rwanda were raped during the 1994 genocide.

Figures taken from: Secretary-General's in-depth study on violence against women (2006) (A/61/122/Add.1) [click on globe image]