Are you aware that every six minutes a woman is raped in the United States? Do you know that in North Africa 6,000 women are genitally mutilated each day? Or that this year, more than 15,000 women will be sold into sexual slavery in China?

In all corners of the world, women are denied the same rights as men. They are forced to conform to male standards of female behavior, in social, cultural, economic and political spheres. Rape, violence against women in custody, domestic violence, acid burnings and genital mutilations are just a few examples of methods used in the subordination of women.

From the first women’s rights convention in 1848 to the right to vote in 1920, from Title VII of the Civil Rights act to Roe vs. Wade, women have struggled tirelessly for their basic human rights. Unfortunately the fight goes on, without much help from our government. The United States is the only developed nation yet to ratify the Women’s Human Rights Treaty.

Out of the many countries where women are subjugated, there is one in which a particularly dangerous climate of violence and abuse is beginning to reach alarming proportion, one which deserves immediate and urgent attention. That country is Guatemala.

On the eve of Dec. 15, 2001, for example, Maria Isabel, a 15-year- old student, was kidnapped in the capital of Guatemala, Guatemala City. Less than two weeks later, her body was found with a rope around her neck. She had been raped, stabbed, strangled and put into a bag. Barbed wire had been tied around her hands and feet. Her body had been punctured with small holes, her face disfigured and her nails bent back.

Those responsible are still at liberty, and Guatemalan authorities have yet to thoroughly and impartially investigate the crime.

The brutal sexual violence inflicted upon Isabel is a common characteristic of the hundreds of killings of women and girls that have been reported in the recent years. Moreover, the lack of attention and concern for such crimes is a frequent and familiar feature and practice of Guatemalan authority.

According to Amnesty International, of the 1,188 women murdered in Guatemala between 2001 and 2004, only 9 percent of the cases have been investigated. Most of the victims have been students, housewives and professionals between the ages of 13 and 40. Having no political clout and little power in society, women in Guatemala are often viewed by perpetrators of violence as disposable, belonging to the vulnerable sectors of society.

This view was most evident during the 36-year internal armed conflict that ended in 1996. During this time, rape was an integral part of the counter-insurgency strategy. It was through this period that the prevalence of gender-based violence and the complicity of Guatemalan authority developed; the conflict years set the stage for the current system of law.

It is this system that needs to be addressed. If a government fails to provide the legal and societal framework necessary for protection from gender-based violence, it essentially sanctions such.

The daily toils of life distract us from the fact that violence and discrimination against women is an incessant and systematic global social epidemic. Ignorance of this serves to further the problem; awareness is the first remedial step, and action is the second.

We can support those suffering in Guatemala by educating ourselves and others about the situation. We can expose the facts of the situation, denounce the violation of human rights and urge our senators to support the Women’s Human Rights Treaty.

We must take these actions if we truly wish to push for women’s rights.