most countries have now endorsed the principle of equality for women and endowed it with normative universality such conflicts arise in the context of almost all religions and traditional cultures since they rely on norms and social practices formulated or interpreted in a patriarchal context at a time when individual human rights in general and women s right to equality in particular had not yet become a global imperative barriers to womens rights are not specific to one region or to one religion but their form and severity does vary among regions and religions