Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that rights of women and girls in his country are highly respected unlike the West where, he claimed, women had 'no dignity'.
Human rights groups have rallied against Iran's election to the UN Commission on the Status of Women on the grounds that the Islamic Republic is oppressive when it comes to women's rights.
"What is left of women's dignity in the West? Is there any generation left? Is there any love and kindness left," Ahmadinejad told reporters.
"Tell me exactly how women's dignity is upheld in West, especially in Europe. Woman is a symbol of beauty of God on Earth," he said, noting that women in Iran were far better off than women in Europe where almost seventy per cent housewives were
beaten by their spouses.