Women Bridging Borders to Beat Violence
NEW YORK - Women’s rights advocates in the United States have launched a novel global initiative aiming to help millions of women across the world who face violence at the hands of men.
“Women know that if there is to be peace in the world we need to connect directly with women from other cultures,” said Alda Kauffeld, manager of the Women’s Global Roundtable, in a statement.
The Roundtable is the brainchild of the U.S.-based women’s organization Peace X Peace and the United Nations Fund for Women (UNIFEM). Its main purpose is to connect U.S. women to their counterparts abroad who are leading the fight against gender violence.
The campaign involves a series of live weekly Web casts and telephone conversations with women activists who have benefited from the UN Trust Fund. Grants from the Trust, established in 1996 by the UN General Assembly, are used to support local initiatives against gender violence.
UNIFEM says it has about $15 million to support local and regional initiatives on women’s empowerment. Though Trust Fund resources are rising, the amount available still falls far short of the demand, which annually surpasses $100 million.
“We are determined to vastly increase the resources of the Fund because we have seen the positive impact from these strategic investments in Argentina, in Rwanda, in Nepal,” said Joanne Sandler, UNIFEM’s deputy executive director, last week.
In Argentina, for example, campaigners used Trust grants to promote safer streets and media coverage of women’s issues in the town of Rosario. Women are now able to walk through the streets and parks without fear because the the authorities have improved signage, constructed bus shelters, and improved visibility.
Kauffeld hopes the Women’s Global Roundtable campaign will help spread the word and inspire new initiatives in other countries. “[This] is a unique opportunity to hear firsthand how small grants can counter violence and promote peace,” she said. “[Participants] will learn about [women’s] personal narratives, challenges, and triumphs.”
Kauffeld said the Roundtable will take place every Tuesday at 8 PM (Eastern Time) and that it will continue until the end of this year. It is open to the public. Future speakers include a Ukrainian policy maker addressing children’s rights and human trafficking (May 13) and a Nigerian lawyer pushing good governance and gender equity (May 20).
Today’s speaker will discuss her work to help women in the Amazon tell their stories of overcoming gender violence to others in the region via local radio programs.
Last November, women’s groups across the world demonstrated for over two weeks, calling for an end to gender violence. The 16-day campaign was fully backed by various UN agencies, including the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).
During that campaign many UN officials and activists observed that a large part of the global media was failing to pay due attention to the problem of violence against women.
“Underreported” stories include rampant domestic violence in Russia, sex slavery in India, self-immolation in Central Asia, gender-based violence and HIV, and “compensation” marriages in several parts of the world, according to the UNFPA.
UNFPA says that in Russia, at least 14,000 women are killed by their husbands or boyfriends every year. In India, demand is growing for young women trafficked from lower castes and abroad, who are then forced into veritable household sexual slavery.
Every year, the proportion of women infected with HIV continues to overtake that of men. While women are two to five times more biologically susceptible to contracting HIV from a male partner, another factor also comes into play: gender-based violence.
This includes sexual coercion, rape in wartime, the practice of “widow cleansing,” domestic violence, and female genital cutting, according to UNFPA. Some studies show that women who suffer violence at home are 10 times more likely to acquire HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
The UN agency says in northern Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan many women burn themselves alive as a way to escape domestic violence and abuse. Researchers say exact numbers are hard to pin down, but anecdotal evidence indicates that such cases are on the rise.
UNFPA also cites the phenomenon of “compensation marriages” prevalent in northwestern Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa. This refers to the practice of forcing minor girls into marriages as compensation to offset debts or other disputes.
“The right to live free of violence and discrimination is the right of every human being,” said UNFPA’s executive director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid. “Yet this right is being violated on a massive and systematic scale.”
In 2006, a 113-page UN study criticized countries that have failed to adopt laws criminalizing violence against women. It was drafted by an advisory committee of 10 high-level internationally recognized experts on gender violence.
The report showed that at least 102 of the 192 UN member states had no specific legal provisions on domestic violence, and marital rape was not a prosecutable offense in as many as 53 countries.
UN researchers say violence against women exists in every country, including those having enacted strict legislation, as a pervasive violation of human rights that continues to hinder efforts for gender equality.
A recent study by the Alabama-based Coalition Against Domestic Violence shows that at least 40 percent of teenage girls in the United States face beatings at the hands of their boyfriends.
Nicole Kidman, the award-winning Hollywood actress and UN Goodwill ambassador, calls violence against women “an appalling human rights violation.”
But to Kidman, who fully supports the Global Women’s Roundtable initiative, “it’s not inevitable.” In her words, “We can put a stop to this.”
© 2008 One World
In the United States, a woman is as likely to commit an act of DV against a man as a man is against a woman, and a child is twice as likely to be injured by a woman as by a man.
Why do articles like this never mention these well-known facts?
How many men are raped by women each year, bolwriter? In the United States, 20,000 women are impregnated by men raping them.
Maybe “articles like this” aren’t mentioning bolwriter’s “well-known facts” because there are 14,000 women being killed each year by men in places like Russia, not vice versa.
Hells bells Preston, don’t got to go no further than our fine upstanding “boys” in the military - womens can’t go to the latrine at night cause if they do, likely to be gang raped and sodomized by nice American “boys”. Good American boys just teaching the “little girls” their place in a MAN’s WORLD.
Ain’t we a lovely bunch of coconuts.
If, as bolwriter says, ‘a woman is as likely to commit an act of DV against a man’, (unlikely)
That would probably be because the MAN goes crying to his mother (the state) about it
Much more often than the woman, who most often just sucks up and carries on because
she has no other viable options, and of course whatever happened was her fault anyway
Beware of what the ’statistics’ say
bolwriter, attitudes like yours are the reason that rape and domestic violence aren’t taken seriously.
Unabusive men don’t wear Axe or Tag.
“In the United States, a woman is as likely to commit an act of DV against a man as a man is against a woman”
This is absolute nonsense, every single documented piece of reserarch refutes this idiocy. Back up this statement with real evidence. Time and time again research shows that between 1%-5% of DV cases are committed by women against men, that’s it.
vaudree: “Unabusive men don’t wear Axe or Tag.”
Ha ha, I think you’re right about that.
Bolwriter is correct that men are about as likely to be hit by their wife as vice versa, but he/she is wrong saying that those facts are “well-known”. Here is one of several references:
Nisonoff & Bitman. Spouse Abuse: Incidence and Relationship to Selected Demographic Variables, Victimology 4, 1979, pp. 131-140. Summary: In 1979, a telephone survey was conducted in which subjects were asked about their experiences of domestic violence. 15.5% of the men and 11.3% of the women reported having hit their spouse; 18.6% of the men and 12.7% of the women reported having been hit by their spouse.
So, in this study, more women reported having hit their husband (12.7%) than being hit by him (11.3%), while more men reported having been hit by his wife (18.6%) than having hit her (15.5%).
Here is additional information with scientific references: http://batteredmen.com/batsewel.htm
My own view is that is is wrong to argue male versus female. It is simply an issue of abused versus abuser.
Bolwriter, martinogk: I don’t doubt that wives slap their husbands as often as abusive husbands knock-around their wives. Physical abuse is rampant in our world, regardless of gender. I also have no doubt that men hit much harder.
And let us not forget that abuse can be verbal and emotional and that they, too, leave scars. Until we recognize that respect is at the core of healthy relationships, there’s little chance of eliminating abuse.
Dear Stilba,
In the United States, the severity of spousal physical violence is about the same by gender. Here is information from two other studies, listed on http://batteredmen.com/batsewel.htm
Straus & Gelles. Societal change and change in family violence from 1975 to 1985 as revealed by two national surveys. Journal of Marriage and the Family 48, 465-479, 1986. Summary: In 1985, the rate of domestic violence against women was 11.3% and against men 12.1%. The rate of severely domestic violent incidents was 3.0% against women and 4.4% against men.
The U.S. Department of Justice released a study on domestic violence and spousal homicides on July 11, 1994. In this study it is reported that women kill men at approximately the same rate as men kill women in “spousal” homicides. (A “spousal” homicide is a husband or wife killing the other or a homicide perpetrated by a common-law marriage partner on the other partner.)
Men are likely more to be abused than women? I feel so sorry for men these days.
Yeah I have to agree with those statistics, woman are much emotionally abusive and violent then men. The man in my life treats me way better than the way I treat him. I better chill with my verbal abuse. He is so generous with his money and his time.
All - What I said is factual.
If you’re interested in the facts, Prof. Richard Gelles has a lot of information, but the best source is Prof. Martin Fiebert at Cal State Long Beach. He maintains a huge file of information on the subject of DV. It’s the largest compendium I know of.
I know that popular culture, like this article on Common Dreams, leads people to believe that women don’t abuse men or don’t do so as much as men do women, but it’s just not true. Even women’s DV shelters have been forced to admit it. Actually there’ve been reputable studies showing this since at least 1994. This culture does its best to denigrate men and the many falsehoods about DV re part of that. If you’re interested in facts as opposed to mythology, check out Fiebert’s site. And pay attention to all the cultural messages portraying men as abusers and the paucity of those showing women the same way.
Dear MA_matriarch,
Don’t feel sorry for men. Feel sorry for the abused, whether a man, woman or child, and whether it is physical, verbal or emotional abuse. Unfortunately, there is a tendency in society to feel sorry for abused women but ridicule abused men as wimps, who cannot defend themselves. I think those men deserve kudos for not returning violence with violence and abuse with abuse.
Dear Bolwriter,
Thanks for the Fiebert reference. For others, here is the link: http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
“Here is additional information with scientific references: http://batteredmen.com/batsewel.htm”
Boy, you guys are gullible!!! And you think the government lies to you???
A quality source provides the reference information so you can look it up and read the original research yourself. That’s because it has nothing to hide. It is very easy cherrypick research and make it say what you want it to, not what the original researchers concluded.
I’m sure glad I understand now about those women running around raping and mutilating the men in the Congo and all.
Give me a (you know what) break!
“Thanks for the Fiebert reference. For others, here is the link: http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm”
This pre-digested pablum. An interesting way to control the information that’s released so it only says what you want it to. Someone who is credible and stands behind their arguments provides the sources to the research they are citing so the reader can verify it at source. Otherwise, it’s total cow crap.
Statistics on reports of domestic violence are based on a self-selected sample. A man being abused is far, far less likely to report it. You don’t see a lot of battered men shelters, or support for physically abused men, do you?
Yes, abusive women are far less likely to “slap around” their spouses. The weapons of choice are thrown objects: knives, scissors, crockery, and/or boiling water.
Yes, the abuse is often caused by PMT. So what? For the abused, they are still spending their lives in continuous fear of an attack, living with someone who might snap at any moment and launch a deadly assault with a kitchen knife. And both men and women abusers do that psychological game, where between episodes of abuse everything is just peachy and hunky-dory.
Feh. I’m single, never married, and glad of it.
I was being sarcastic with my previous comment. I am one of the most non-violent people that one would know. Unfortunately, I have suffered at the hands of an abusive father and mother. In fact my mother broke a broom over my back for not cleaning my room when I was a child. She broke my back. She never brought me to the hospital and it didn’t heal correctly and I found out a few years ago that is why I have major back issues. The unhealed vertabrae caused a domino in my back. I now suffer from multiple back problems. I had forgotten all about the incident until the doctor brought it to my attention.
All the men I have known in my life are emotionally abusive. I credit it as to how they were raised.Nurturing is not encouraged or supportive in this country. Unfortunately people don’t understand how important the first three years are in a child’s life. A great deal of children are raised in institutional daycare and caretakers are trained not to touch children.
They there is the public education.
“Harris thought, a hundred years ago, that self-alienation was the key to a successful society. Filling the young mind with the thoughts of others and surrounding it with ugliness - that was the passport to self-alienation. Who can say that he was wrong?”
http://www.spinninglobe.net/condunces.htm
Self-alienation is key to a proper education. This negative cycle is being played out today in our society. It seems this cycle will not change until society as we now know it crashes and burns. Internationally this country is being looked at as if we are a joke. Take a look at the latest international disaster in Texas with the FDLS community.
Look at the freedom this country has brought Iraq women and children or Afganistan women and children. Until this country puts family first it has no business trying to solve anyone else’s problems.
As a female victim of mainly psychological, but also physical, abuse in 18 years of marriage, I well know how many times I wanted to return the violence. I didn’t, but it was a difficult choice every time. So, while I cannot excuse women for getting violent, many do because they are, or have been, abused. Please, let us help all victims of domestic violence–women, men, and children– and destroy the roots of such violence. And the beginning of this help needs to be facing the total truth of abuse within families.
um. Anyone recall the female genocide of the 17th century? The denial of women’s vote in this country until 1920? Corsets? Honor killings? Burkas? Foot binding? 76 cents on the dollar? “Hysteria”? Denial of birth control and sexual education by the Catholic church? Denial of women as priests in the Catholic church? That 99% of the land in the world is “owned” by men?
Need I continue?
Violence against women is FAR more pervasive than violence against men by women…to skew this debate by throwing in statistics of domestic violence against men is ridiculous. Domestic violence law in most states requires that someone be arrested when the police are called, and usually they arrest the woman as a way to remove her from the situation…I have worked in domestic violence shelters for years and this argument that the article is somehow biased because of statistics is completely ridiculous. Completely.
“The right to live free of violence and discrimination is the right of every human being”, and ” yet this right is being vioated on a massive and systematic scale.” , said UNFPA’s executive director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid. Isn’t that the point with which we should concern ourselves? Why quibble about statistics ( which can always be used in a dishonest way for ad hoc purposes) to assign proportions of blame? Read undercoverRepublican’s post above to see that a deeper knowledge needs to be employed when drawing conclusions about cited statistics. We need to get past this childish “battle of the sexes”.
Yes, the battle of the sexes is nothing but more hostility to distract attention from the real issue: people still are using violence against each other to achieve their goals, which ALL ALL ALL boil down to POWER OVER. One person wants power over another, so they slap, punch, kick, maim, drop bombs, curse-out, threaten, insult, humiliate, rape, stab, shoot, poison, starve, burn, or whatever. People do it to adults, to children, to dogs, cats, cows, goats, squirrels, whatever. It’s all wrong, every bit of it. But how do we stop it? These brave women in this article are trying one way. What are each of us doing? bickering with each other about who is sicker and more violent? bad idea.
Here’s a little story: I grew up with abuse. Mommy schoolteacher and daddy army/cop wanted strict control over their kids. How did they do it? With their fists. Dad had lots of good ole army training in how to inflict pain, and would ‘go overboard’ sometimes while ‘disciplining’ me. Mom did her own thing, too, and when I became too big & desensitized for her strikes to have any effect other than me laughing at her, she’d call in Pop to finish the job — knowing fully that he would ‘go overboard’ and leave me a bloody mess. But as long as I learned my lesson…
Now, who is sicker? Who is more violent? I gave up trying to answer that one long ago. Sick people are sick. Men and women both get the sickness of violence. It happens to both, some worse than others, but both can be violent.
What to do? I can’t tell you what to do, but I have worked as a self-defense instructor, an activist, and I’ve taken direct action when I see abuse taking place. Boy, let me tell you, people get PISSED OFF when you tell them to stop hitting their child in public. There are many opinions on this, but I’ve tried a soft approach if I see a kid getting hit on the sidewalk by a parent: “OK, OK, OK. That’s enough. It’s just a child. He’s/She’s crying. don’t you think that’s enough.” Talk about abuse - I get it next, threats, swings at me, yelling curses. I’ll take it, though. I’m bigger and I’ve been through worse. Plus, if the parent is yelling at me, then the parent is not hitting the child. Will the parent hit the child later when they are home? You bet. That particular parent will probably hit that child many more times in public and in private for all sorts of BS reasons. And the pathetic parent still will feel powerless in his/her life.
How do we educate that type of person? How do we instill change, give that person a feeling of power within so that they don’t seek power over? Can we do it at all? I really don’t know. My own parents still believe they were right to use ‘corporal punishment’ (child abuse) to ‘discipline’ (control) me. We no longer speak and possibly never will again.
The problem is the violence, the desire for power over, the feelings of powerlessness that drive people to this sickness. I am NOT making excuses for abusers, but it is so much more than “men are more violent / no, women are more violent”. And it hurts all living things.
Peace, Buckycat.
When my father went after my siblings I would somehow intercede on their behalf and I would take the beatings myself, so I know exactly what you mean Buckycat. The ironic thing is that now none of my siblings have a relationship with me. I am the oldest out of ten. I am at peace with them though.
I am also at peace with my mother and father. Hey, they might deny everything they have said and done to me but it is now their problem, not mine. I don’t know how this all works out in the wash. I used to think they would have to deal with it in their afterlife, but now I am wondering if that is so. Most likely not.
I thought I would break the chain of abuse with my own son. I never abused him as a child, teenager or adult. But you know what he is abusive. He has absolutely no respect for me. How about that for a kick in a head? I truly and absolutely know he got this attitude from the public school system. I experienced first hand how school personal punished him. Due to “learning disabilities” I advocated for him and they retaliated, big time. They made me look as though I was absolutely powerless in his eyes. They intended on “breaking him”.
All I have to say is that the entire system needs to change and I don’t see that happening any time in the near future. I mean let’s face it this country is all about “power”, it isn’t about “happiness”.
vaudree May 7th, 2008 1:26 pm
Unabusive men don’t wear Axe or Tag.
Sure they do. They wear Old Spice, too.
MA_Matriarch: Thanks for your reply and openness. I am so sorry to hear about your son’s behavior toward you. Unbelievable, but all too typical of the training we males get in our society. I hate to go to the “it’s society” place, but it really is like trying to make Niagra Falls go up. With a teaspoon. Even among the friends I consider more evolved than most, some hateful, sexist, racist, abusive or other such dumbass comment pops up now and then to remind me that no matter how hard we try, that hate/hostility is deep in there and requires constant vigilance. Even so, good men today often take the brunt of yesterday’s bad men. The whole thing is overwhelming to sort out.
Bad back and child abuse? Seems those things go together constantly. I’m just recovering from a herniated disc. The problem is mainly an extra lumbar vertabrae (6 instead of 5) but taking a 2×4 across the back in my teens couldn’t have helped things much. How does a parent think such things area good plan? Blows my mind.
And you took shots for your sibs… My older sis took some shots for me. She knew she’d get ONE and I’d get any number more than that. I wish I could say I’m at peace with the whole thing. But I’m not. Yet.
Thanks again, Buck.
The topics of abuse and oppression are really tough for us humans to face openly and effectively–can you tell from this discussion alone?
Oppressors are rarely comfortable seeing and admitting and making up for our errors and quick to get defensive and accusatory, while victims have had our realities and senses of self so damaged that we often bounce helplessly between impotent fury and self-sabotage.
Maybe this is because everyone is poisoned by abuse at some level, and no one–not even an oppressor–feels enough (or often any) actual personal power, security or confidence. Many who look like and act as oppressors in one context, are actual victims in another circumstance. And vice-versa.
There will always be some kind of “other” for a person to denigrate and abuse. Which group gets the most abuse, or was the first to receive abuse is a “no exit” discussion.
Very unfortunately, most existing human cultures are based, one way or another, on this belief: “Some kind of lifeform (usually the kind I identify with) is intrinsically more valuable than any other.” Mix this in with everyone’s (conscious or subconscious) feelings of powerlessness and desperation and you have the disaster we call modern human civilization.
Can we openly face our unconscious beliefs in the victim-oppressor model of relating? Can the victim parts of ourselves unearth personal power and integrity and the oppressor parts of ourselves find forgiveness and the grace to right our wrongs? Do we humans possess enough inner strength and outward support to undergo this kind of metamorphosis?
Can each of us find our deepest level of integrity and speak and act from that place?
On a different note: I recognize that the photo which acompanies this article bears great resemblance to many images of “sexy” women I see in the US–except this woman looks visibly miserable. Obviously, the image of woman as vulnerable (and available for you!)permeates our adspace, let alone our pornography. Someone recently told me that apprehended serial killers have confessed that their crimes stemmed from use of pornography–anyone care to comment on that?
By the way, I found some of the discussion of “Culture of Misogyny” http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/06/8766/ highly relevant to this article as well.
Such great sharing of experiences - Thank you all!
This is an issue that runs through all cultures and communities. We simply need to be open and share to heal. Let’s prevent the next generation from the experiences we have had.
I am impressed with the level of confidence and community we share today. I have hope.
Sat Nam
rebl, wearing axe and tag is a form of abuse - especially if the abuser can handle these drugs much better than their many innocent victims.
There are many different ways of beating people up - and no one who abuses another human being is willing to own up to it.
Just think of Bush when he says that America doesn’t torture, if you don’t believe me.
I think that I’d willingly take a punch in the stomach every day of the rest of my life if, in trade, I’d never be exposed to axe or tag again. The second hand fumes from that stuff does things that Cheney doesn’t even deserve.
I think (hope) I’m missing something with these Axe & Tag comments. I’m not big on cologne - occasional essential oils, but no commercial stinks - so I don’t know what’s up with these other products. Can anyone explain? Thanks.
Also, wanted to mention John Stoltenberg’s books, particularly “Refusing to be a Man”. Good stuff. Helps un-puff those big macho chests you see bumping all over the place.
Thanks, B.
The real question that seems unanswered is just why men in these countries such as Saudi Arabia, the whole Middle EAst and Africa seem to take out their brutality against women? What is their frustration other than it is ordained to be their right by their government and religion. Or is frustration their cause or is it fear of losing control and the shame that comes with it. The same here in the west, shame that women and children refuse to be controlled. Control comes in many guises and women can be just as guilty of dirty tricks here in the West. But physical abuse is more common with males being the culprit. The real key is control, fear and shame in the eyes of judgemental peers for the males. For the cruel females,they too want control or just give in to their wicked desires. Control so that one won’t be alone in the world with no one to justify their existence even if their reason for being is not laudable.