The discrimination against women in the United States is worse than in most developed countries, according to findings of a United Nations expert group.

A delegation of human rights experts from Poland, the United Kingdom and Costa Rica spent 10 days this month touring the United States so they can prepare a report on the nation’s overall treatment of women. The three women, who lead a United Nations working group on discrimination against women, visited Alabama, Texas and Oregon to evaluate a wide range of U.S. policies and attitudes, as well as school, health and prison systems.

The delegates were appalled by the lack of gender equality in America, according to an article on The Huffington Post. They found the U.S. to be lagging far behind international human rights standards in a number of areas, including its 23 percent gender pay gap, maternity leave, affordable child care and the treatment of female migrants in detention centers.

“The US, which is a leading state in formulating international human rights standards, is allowing women to lag behind,” said the human rights monitors at the end of an official visit to the country, EuroNews reported.

The preliminary report which will be released in full to the U.N. Human Rights Council next year, described an “overall picture of women’s missing rights.”

“While all women are the victims of these missing rights, women who are poor, belong to Native American, Afro-American and Hispanic ethnic minorities, migrant women, LBTQ women, women with disabilities and older women are disparately vulnerable,” the experts said.

Speaking to reporters in Washington after the visit concluded, the U.N. monitors called some of the findings “shocking” and “myth-shattering”.