The World Fails

The world failed Dua Khalil as it fails so very many of our girls. We may like to think we're more enlightened in the West (where countless people later watched cell phone footage of 17 year old Dua's beating and stoning murder by a mob of men, where domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women (more than muggings, rape and car accidents combined), where more than 50% of disabled women have experienced physical abuse) but statistics show hatred of women is rampant worldwide.

Joss Whedon rails against the misogyny of Dua's brutal “honour” killing on the community weblog, Whedonesque. He also places it in a global context and discusses his objections to the billboard campaign for Captivity, a film which features the extended torture of Elisha Cuthbert.

“…every popular religion puts restrictions on women's behavior that are practically untenable…The act of being a free, attractive, self-assertive woman is punishable by torture and death… In the case of this upcoming torture-porn, fictional. In the case of Dua Khalil, mundanely, unthinkably real. And both available for your viewing pleasure.”

Women and girls deserve a better world than this.

• Support Equality Now

• Join Amnesty International's Stop Violence Against Women campaign

• Condemn the murder of Dua by signing the International Campaign against killings and stoning of women in Kurdistan petition.