Christian persecution: Women suffer 'double blow' for faith and for being female; Christians called to prayer

About 40,000 churches across the United States were asked to participate in "Stand With the Persecuted Sunday," an initiative that took place on April 17 centering on praying for those who are persecuted around the world.

In a joint effort of Open Doors USA, In Defense of Christians, and other organizations, the churches were asked to show a two-minute video, distribute to the congregation a special bulletin insert, and pray for those who are persecuted.

Wolrd Watch Monitor reported in January there is an increase in anti-Christian violence last year. In the data they gathered with the assistance of Open Doors, they found that from November 2014 to October 2015, 7,106 Christians were killed and 2,425 churches were attacked due to faith-based reasons -- likely higher due to unreported incidents. This is a huge increase to the previous year's 4,344 Christians killed and 1,062 churches attacked.

Meanwhile, a study by the Pew Research Center in 192 countries and territories revealed that more women, 83.4 percent, identify with a religion, higher than men with 79.9 percent. In 2010, this amounted to about 97 million more women affiliated with a faith group. In Christian communities in many countries, women are generally more religious than men, and "there are no countries in which men are more religiously affiliated than women by 2 percentage points or more," said the report.

"However, increasing numbers of women face a double blow today – violent attacks against them because of their Christian faith, and because they are women," an event organizer who goes by the alias Kate Ward said, as reported by the World Watch Monitor.

Ward was speaking at the Marcham Conference "Women and Persecution" held in March. They discussed that Christian women are particularly at risk of being persecuted and being targeted as "a deliberate weapon of warfare and tactic of jihad."

The suffering of Christian women also include being forced into marriage; neglect; physical, emotional, sexual, spiritual, and psychological abuse; bonded labor; sexual trafficking; forced prostitution; among other things.

"What grieves me the most is that the historical inequality issues of 19th century Britain are today's issues for Christian women all over the world," Ward said. 

Open Doors previously released its 2016 World Watch List of the places where it is most difficult to be Christian. The top 10 are: North Korea, Iraq, Eritrea, Afghanistam, Syria, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Iran, and Libya.