“Perhaps there is no woman in the world whose life can compare with the life of the Amazon woman; she is a woman of strength whose life evolves around the Amazon River. Her food is caught in or near the river; her water source and her transportation is provided by the Amazon River; and it is here that she washes her body, her clothes, her pots, and watches as her children play. She cuts weeds from the river for food and uses the river for disposing of her refuse. It is the Amazon, its tributaries, and surrounding land that provides livelihood for her family. Hers is a rugged, hard life, with no frills, but there are smiling faces on many of the half million people who thrive on the mystique of the Amazon”.

“There is no incident in India that troubled me more than reading in an Indian newspaper of ‘kitchen fires’. These are subtle murders of women who have married. The woman’s family may have failed to provide adequate dowry as promised for their daughters to the in-laws or to the husband, or it may be that the young wife has failed to meet the expectations of the family into which she has married. These women are ‘locked in the kitchen’, doused with gasoline, and set afire. Seldom did authorities ever examine a ‘kitchen fire’. The value of a woman’s life appears to be inconsequential.”