Mali's President Bails on Women's Rights Law

Yemen, Congo, Niger among lowest ranking

(NEWSER) - To mark International Women's Day, AoL News takes note of countries that treat their women the worst. The findings are based on a UN index that factors in categories such as jobs, education, political representation, and reproductive health. The worst offenders:

1. Yemen: Its female citizens routinely face "violence and discrimination," says Amnesty International.

... To stop them from eloping

(NEWSER) - A council in northern India has forbidden all unmarried women from carrying cell phones, in an effort to prevent them from eloping with people of different castes. At least 23 young couples ran off and got married without their parents’ consent last year in Uttar Pradesh state, the AFP explains. “The panchayat (assembly) was convinced that the couples planned their elopement over their cell phones,” said one village elder. More»

They want political rivals to stop infighting

(NEWSER) - Kenyan women are withholding sex in hopes of forcing an end to the squabbling that threatens to break the government's fragile coalition and plunge the nation into chaos, the AP reports. Thousands of members of 11 women's groups are participating in the week-long strike, and they have asked the wives of the president and prime minister to join them. More»

Child marriages will be 'regulated'; no evidence they'll be barred

(NEWSER) - Amid an uproar over an adult man’s marriage to an 8-year-old girl, Saudi Arabia will begin regulating child marriage, the BBC reports. The country’s justice minister wants to end the “arbitrary” process, he said, though he didn’t say such matches would be banned. A court upheld the marriage provided the husband—whose age has been reported as 47 and 60—doesn’t have sex with the girl until after she reaches puberty. More»

Thousands protest pontiff's claim that contraceptives don't halt HIV

(NEWSER) - The pope’s recent remark that condoms not only don’t prevent the spread of HIV but make it worse hasn’t earned him many friends on Facebook, CNN reports. Almost a dozen groups have sprung up in protest of the pontiff’s scientifically inaccurate statement, with thousands of Facebookers—many of them in Europe—pledging to send millions of condoms to the Vatican. More»