President Jimmy Carter says unequal pay, domestic violence, rape on college campuses, sexual slavery, genital mutilation and the killing of female infants make the abuse and exploitation of women and girls the gravest human rights issue on earth. One of the causes of the scourge, he notes, is the misreading of scripture. “The male leaders of the great religions select verses from the Holy Bible or from the Qur\u2019an that show that women should be relegated to a secondary position in the eyes of God,” says Carter, author of A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence and Power<\/i>, “and this gives a potential abusive husband or an employer who wants to pay less to women employees than men an excuse.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"