HUMAN rights activists in the Philippines have condemned President Rodrigo Duterte for urging soldiers to shoot women in the vagina to render them “useless.”

Mr Duterte made the comments to 200 former Maoist rebels in Malacanang last week, saying of female Maoist fighters: “Tell the soldiers: ‘There’s a new order coming from the mayor [Mr Duterte]. We will not kill you. We will just shoot you in the vagina’.”

The government later censored the official transcript to remove the Visayan word for vagina.