SALVADOR, BRAZIL-Armed extremist and fundamentalist groups worldwide areincreasingly eroding women´s rights and undermining gains madein gender equality in recent years, the head of U.N.Women saidon Friday.
Militant groups from Boko Haram in Nigeria to the IslamicState in Iraq and Syria target women in their attacks on humanrights, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the head of the United Nations´women´s advocacy agency, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation inan interview.
"Fundamentalists have an issue with women.They are mostcruel against women," she said.
"Fundamentalism is a majorburden for women, and it takes away the security of women morethan anything else." Speaking at a meeting of the Association for Women´sRights in Development (AWID), she said extremists haveintensified their attacks on groups around the world thatcampaign for gender equality and defend human rights.
"The space for democratic movements and democratic values ingeneral is shrinking and, within that, space for gender equalityis also shrinking," Mlambo-Ngcuka said.
She cited the example of the Yazidi people of northern Iraqwhere women and girls have been brutalized at the hands of theIslamic State. "The jihadist group has targeted women withparticular cruelty including rape and sex slavery", she said.
She also cited the case of women and girls at the hands ofBoko Haram, which has waged an insurgency to carve out anIslamic state in northeast Nigeria that has killed some 15,000people and displaced more than two million others.In the group´s most high-profile attack of April 2014, BokoHaram kidnapped 276 girls from a secondary school in Chibok innortheast Borno state.
About 50 girls escaped in the initial melee, but 219 weretaken captive.Rights groups say armed religious extremist groups worldwidepose a huge threat to women by promoting child marriage, keepinggirls out of school and female genital mutilation, practicesthat humanitarians and others have been battling in recentyears.
"The violence against women is one of the biggest challengesthat women face everywhere in the world.The type of violenceman differ, but the impact on women is the same," Mlambo-Ngcukasaid.