“Gender-based censorship is a human rights abuse”
Profile on Women's World

The Women's World Organization for Rights, Literature, and Development, or Women's WORLD, was formed because nowhere on earth are women's voices given the same respect as men's. “In far too many countries, women who try to have a public voice are met with hatred, contempt, suppression, exile, or death,” says their web site.

The organization believes that all forms of silencing and exclusion of women must be seen as censorship. “Gender-based censorship is a human rights abuse that must be fought. The world cannot afford to use less than half its wisdom.”

Women's World undertakes work in various areas. They research and educate the public about the scope and prevalence of gender-based censorship, and work to have this problem redefined as a human rights abuse that violates the right to free expression of more than half the world's population.

In addition, the organization defends writers who are attacked because of their views on gender or because they are women - and mounts international press campaigns about particular cases and extreme abuses.

The Women's World web site is committed to sharing the stories of women writers from around the world and welcomes stories on the "the war on terrorism," immigrants and civil rights, as well as the long-range, pervasive economic and political crisis afflicting so many places in the world today.

Visitors to the web site will also find an advice section for aspiring writers and a report on censorship.

For more information visit
http://www.wworld.org/crisis/crisisList.asp