"The woman's body has become the battlefield," said Sanam  Anderlini of the British-based group International Alert, which  tries to focus world attention on the effects of war.  

On the last day of a U.N. conference to accelerate progress  toward women's equality, activists denounced the lack of concrete  action to help innocent women caught in armed conflicts _ even  though a landmark gathering in Beijing five years ago identified  women in conflicts as one of the main areas of concern.  

Amy Smythe, former minister of gender and women's affairs in  Sierra Leone, said Friday that women in the west African country  wracked by civil war are often "abducted as sex slaves, or as  cooks or carriers of luggage."  

During eight years of fighting, rebel forces led by Foday Sankoh  have killed tens of thousands of civilians and systematically  maimed many more, including women and children.  

The rebels attack women "to fragment the community," said Isha  Diafan of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.  

Although recent research shows that some women have actively  supported violent organizations and uprisings, women and children  make up 80 percent of refugees and displaced people.  

With ethnic, religious and tribal identities playing a key role  in many of today's conflicts, activists say women have become  strategic targets.  

"You rape them, you force them into pregnancy, you totally  dishonor them ... you are breaking up the fabric of a family, so  you are going right to the heart and soul of a community,"  Anderlini said, citing the use of rape in the Bosnian war and in  Sierra Leone.  

Gender-based violence also is used to terrorize the general  population, grass-roots groups said.  

Bhutanese women who fled to Nepal said they were raped in Bhutan  in front of their families "to create fear" and force the  population to flee, said Anjana Shakya, a member of the South Asia  Beijing Plus Five Committee.  

Nearly 100,000 people of Nepalese origin were evicted or  encouraged to emigrate from Bhutan in the early 1990s when the  kingdom's ethnic Drukpas cracked down on what they called illegal  immigrants.  

Women also are at the mercy of whichever side takes over their  territory, as is the case in Afghanistan.  

Under the strict Islamic rule of the Taliban militia that  controls 90 percent of the country, women are not allowed to work,  girls older than 8 may not attend school and women in public must  wear a burqa, or a head-to-toe shroud that covers their body. State  officials roam the streets looking for women violating the edicts  and they are publicly beaten.  

The U.S.-based Feminist Majority Foundation urged world leaders  _ in particular U.S. and U.N. officials _ to put more pressure on  the Taliban and nations supporting them to abolish the restrictions  imposed on women. The foundation also called on the United States  and other countries to increase their asylum quotas for women from  Afghanistan. &nb