Nicaragua

30/04/1998 1 Conscription

conscription does not exist

Conscription was abolished in 1990. In that year the civil war with the contras came to an end with the signing of the peace accords. The new government abolished military service immediately after winning the 1990 elections.

There is no current legislation providing for conscription. The Patriotic Military Service Law was legally abolished by a law passed by the National Assembly in December 1990 (Ley que deroga la Ley del Servicio Militar Patri--tico).

Brazilian women won the right to vote in 1932. Today, women represent 5 percent of the House of Deputies and .24 percent of the Senate.

Some 20 percent of Brazil's 35 million families are now headed by women. Most are poor and live with inadequate sanitation: over 90 percent of children under a year old in the Northeast live in homes with inadequate sewage systems.

Women in Brazil earn, on the average, 52 percent of what men do.