A UN official blasted the policy of outlawing abortion in some US states as “torture” and said there was a coordinated effort to attack women’s rights.

“We have not called it out in the same way we have other forms of extremist hate, but this is gender-based violence against women, no question,” United Nations deputy high commissioner for human rights, Kate Gilmore, told The Gaurdian.

“It’s clear it’s torture – it’s a deprivation of a right to health.”

Gilmore said that a UN committee has declared that absolute prohibition of abortion is against human right.

“This is a crisis. It’s a crisis directed at women,” she said, adding that the recent laws in Missouri and Alabama that seek to outlaw or curtail most abortions are “deeply distressing.”

The World Health Organization found that 30 women die for every 100,000 unsafe abortions in wealthy countries. But in poorer countries the number rose to 220 while it soars to 520 in sub-Saharan Africa.

“We have to stand with the evidence and facts and in solidarity with women, and in particular young women and minority women who are really under the gun,” Gilmore told the paper.

“This doesn’t affect well-off women in the same way as women with no resources, or able-bodied women the way it affects disabled women, and urban women the way it affects rural women,”