Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I think this is topical to the item we are debating, which is to proceed to the Violence Against Women Act, and I wish to take a moment to highlight a couple of egregious examples around the world where young girls and women are being threatened by violence in what remains a scourge throughout the planet, and then I will focus on here at home as well. On April 17--and this is a pretty shocking incident--about 150 Afghan school girls were poisoned after drinking contaminated water. It appears by all signals that it was a deliberate contamination of the water. They are blaming this on conservative radicals who are opposed to female education. So there is evidence to suggest that 150 girls from Afghanistan were poisoned because they went to school. This is happening in the 21st century. A new report from the Human Rights Commission on Pakistan says there were 943 Pakistani women killed in 2011 and they were killed for ``honor.'' Of the 953 victims, 93 were minors. Around 595 of the women killed in 2011 were accused of having ``illicit relations,'' and 219 of them were accused of marrying without permission. Again, this is the 21st century we are talking about where these things are happening. In fact, this same report, in 2010, says there were 791 honor killings of women in Pakistan. Here is one that is really disturbing and very sick. In South Africa, a group of young males in Soweta were filmed raping a 17-year-old who was believed to be mentally ill.…”