Jimmy Carter: Violence against women is 'the worst human rights abuse on Earth'

Former President Jimmy Carter said this week that violence against women was "the worst human rights abuse on Earth" -- and it was happening right here inside the United States.

During a discussion at the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library's Civil Rights Summit in Austin on Tuesday, Carter explained that the greatest global issue of civil rights was about equal rights for women.

"The worst human rights abuse on Earth right now is, by far, the abuse of women and girls," the former president said. "And this takes place not only in every foreign country, but also in the United States quite severely."

Carter argued that "slavery" in the United States now exceeded slavery in the 19th century because 100,000 girls "were sold into sexual slavery" last year.

He also pointed to a problem of rape on college campuses that was being covered up by administrators.

"College presidents and deans don't want it to be known that rape takes place on college campuses so they discourage the girls from reporting the rapes, and we have the same problem in the military," Carter noted.

On the subject of equality, he observed that women received 23 percent less pay than men for the same work.

"So, in all those areas of life, sexual abuse and deprivation of rights in the job place, women and girls suffer severely in this country, and even worse around the world."

Watch the video below from The LBJ Library, broadcast April 8, 2014.

(h/t: MSNBC)