Nigeria has ratified the convention. That's a country where women are stoned to death for the crime of adultery. Islamic law, called shariah, calls for death to women who commit adultery, but a lesser punishment for adulterous men.

Saudi Arabia has ratified the convention. That's the country where 14 girls died inside a Mecca school that went up in flames. Religious police kept rescuers from entering the building because some of the girls were not wearing their head coverings.

Colombia has ratified the convention. That's a country where thousands of women a year are sold into sex slavery. Similar outrages take place in India, Nepal and Thailand, which have also ratified the convention.

All these countries are eligible to sit on the convention's monitoring committee of 23 "experts" who monitor "progress" and order compliance. All U.N. projects to improve the lot of women follow the feminist model: Break up the family, force women into the work force, and send kids to day care.

The International Violence Against Women Act is based on the lie that violence against women is the same problem in all countries. Many non-Western countries have social norms that justify abuse (such as genital mutilation, forced marriage, and polygamy), and "international standards" would vastly diminish the rights and benefits U.S. women now enjoy.

U.S. women are the most privileged class of people on the face of the earth. That's because we are the beneficiaries of the Judeo-Christian civilization, including the requirement in the Ten Commandments to honor mothers and the Christian religion that honors the Virgin Mary and respects women.

Mark Steyn presents a good idea in his new book called "America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It" (Regnery, $28). Because the majority of women in European battered women's shelters are Muslim, he suggests that a serious push for women's rights in the Islamic world could destabilize Islamic regimes such as Iran.