As is the case with many Middle Eastern nations, women are nowhere near equal to men when it comes to basic freedoms and rights that we take for granted every day.

The United Nations greatest fear is that average Americans will no longer tolerate these international scandals and demand that America withdraw from the international organization.

While all of these are important and significant events, it is the United States foreign policy that furthers the advancement of freedoms and rights for women that is the most striking for me.

For centuries, the world has heard the oppressed, the downtrodden and the vulnerable cry out for their freedoms, for their rights and for a chance to emerge from the shadows of the tyranny and bloodshed that they had lived with.

We all know that, unfortunately, the media does not always portray the good things that are happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, and this will be a great opportunity for us to glean some information from the Iraqi women who are here for us to also take back to our constituents.

While women certainly have made great strides toward pay parity in the past 30 years, there is still a gap in earnings between men and women in equivalent professions.

Since President Bush took office in 2001, this Congress has supported an agenda of democracy, freedom and expansion of rights for all peoples throughout the world.