// The War on Women by Sue Lloyd-Roberts

There are certain books that holds undiluted truth. They reaffirm what we already know and quite often this leaves us heartbroken. The War on Women as the title suggests is about women all over the globe who have been deemed as collateral damage for various laws, rules and wars set by men. Ironic, isn't?

Have you heard of the fallen women of Ireland? Where young women were taken in by nuns under the disguise of religion and were given backbreaking work all their lives? Working for a piece of break and gruel, all because of having a baby out of wedlock or for being raped.

Have you heard of the Pakistani/Kurdish families settled in the UK getting their teenage daughters married off to men of their father's age for merely looking at a boy? The fact that the groom has zero education and mental illness hardly matters.

What about the honor killings in Pakistan where girls are murdered by their own family members?

Then there's Saudi Arabia and Egypt where women have no rights whatsoever. They live and breathe in houses that are like prisons. Have you heard of the protests in Egypt that eventually leads to women activists being groped and eventually raped?

There's sex trafficking in Russia and Genital mutilation in African countries that left me infuriated. And of course, there's also India where daughters aren't given equal status as the sons.

Grandmothers looking for their missing children and grandchildren after the dirty wars of Argentina, women who survived the Bosnian War but not without any damage; these real stories have bled onto the pages.

Sue involves some of the heroes who made it out alive to tell their stories. Decades have gone by but they expect an apology. For what these nations have done to them. What they have been doing to them.

This well researched masterpiece has to be read by all of us to understand what our sisters have faced at the hands of men/religious institutions. While you may already know some of them, there's a lot more for you to learn.

Because there's always something is buried in our history books. Something frightening but true nevertheless.