The Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights activist Tawakkol Karman said that women are among the groups most affected and exposed to various violations in areas experiencing wars and armed conflicts.

Her statement came in a speech she made during a panel discussion entitled "Women and Conflict" organized by the Aronson Center for International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Tawakkol Karman indicated that most victims of vulnerable women in conflict zones are civilians and have neither direct nor indirect relationship to the causes of the conflict, noting that the number of female fighters among armed groups is very small compared to women who have never engaged in wars or armed conflicts.

Mrs. Karman stressed that experiences of many countries show that women's issues will remain the same unless parallel progress also occurs in different areas of society as a whole, including the state, the law and the judicial system. 

She added that a culture of intolerance, contempt for and the complete exclusion and oppression of women have been enhanced and justified since the end of the seventies as a result of the rise of the Khomeini revolution and the Iranian regime of mullahs.

She emphasized that the same culture was also strengthened by Saudi Arabia that has worked for decades to spread religious extremism and extremist ideas in Arab societies in conjunction with the Afghan-Soviet war.

Saudi Arabia and Iran are two sides of the same coin, she concluded.