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Violence Against Women Is a Global Struggle
Eight years ago, Nasreen (not her real name) walked into the office of the Daily Khabrain newspaper in Lahore, Pakistan, and demanded justice. She stripped off her clothes, revealing a black and blue body covered with wounds and cigarette burns. She'd been gang raped. With tears in her eyes, she said, "My husband hired three men and got me raped in front of him because I was tired of his abuse and demanded the divorce that Islam gave me a right to. He didn't even respect me as the mother of his children. . .. I just want justice in the name of God.''
Nasreen was just one of millions of women who suffer acid attacks, rape, forced marriages and other unimaginable forms of violence around the world. One out of every three women worldwide is physically, sexually or otherwise abused during her lifetime. The good news is that there are thousands of organizations in communities around the world for abused women. These organizations run shelters and offer help, support, training, and education so that women can be self-sufficient. They also fight to change cultural attitudes and push for legal reform.
In Pakistan, for example, legal reforms in the past decade have slowly started to give women the tools of basic justice. The story of Nasreen and countless other women became a catalyst for two groundbreaking resolutions in the provincial parliament in Punjab in 2003. One prohibited acid attacks on women. The other abolished violent customary practices or vani, which include honor killings, forced marriages and women bartered into marriage to make up for crimes committed by their male family members. These reforms were unprecedented and moved forward in a parliament that is notoriously corrupt, traditionalist and patriarchal, with leaders who are not only collaborators but often directly involved in violence themselves.
The resolutions had a snowball effect. They created pressure on the federal government of Pakistan, then led by Pervez Musharraf, to amend the nation's criminal laws to protect women against domestic abuse. The following year, despite opposition from many religious leaders, a Women's Protection Act was passed that repealed the Hudood Ordinance, under which a woman subjected to rape, even gang rape, was accused of fornication.
Last year, Pakistan enacted a Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace bill. None of this would have happened without the concerted effort of local women leaders, community-based organizations, NGOs, and the media, which together created enough public awareness and pressure to move the needle.
Now the needle may move again. The International Violence Against Women Act, a historic, bipartisan effort by the United States to address violence against women globally, was introduced this week.
The bill addresses, for the first time, violence against women and girls through all relevant US foreign policy efforts, including its international assistance programs. It would support local efforts in up to 20 countries, assisting in public awareness and health campaigns; shelters; education, training, and economic empowerment programs for women, as well as legal reforms. It would also make the issue a diplomatic priority for the first time, asking the United States to respond within three months to horrific acts of violence against women and girls committed during conflict and war.
Support from the American public is strong. A 2009 poll found that 61 percent of voters across demographic and political lines thought global violence against women should be one of the top international priorities for the US government, and 82 percent supported the International Violence Against Women Act.
Despite the odds women face, we, as advocates to end this global scourge, are always awed by their strength. There are countless examples of women supporting each other to overcome the bleakest of circumstances. Helping them become economically empowered and providing protection and access to justice will enable these women to create societies that are more tolerant, less violent, less extremist, and more human and socially just. Passing the International Violence Against Women Act could truly be a life-changing force for millions of women and girls like Nasreen around the world.
49 Comments so far
Show AllViolence against women and children seems to stem from authoritarian beliefs that women are less than human and even as mere property. Those attitudes must change before the abuse stops. Laws are but a beginning.
Gary
"People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned."
-- James Baldwin
Is it just women and children? What about violence against men? I would agree that violence against anyone, male or female, comes from authoritarian beliefs but this cannot be limited to one gender alone.
While hearts and minds must ultimately change and become more happily attuned to some set of basic universal human rights, as with American civil rights, the first steps to ending the subjugation and abuse of women can, and perhaps must, be legal remedies.
I often wonder about the millennia of abuse of women (and children) by males. Is it power? Greed? A natural effect of testosterone which seeks challenges and longs to conquer? Now that science shows unequivocally that all humans are one species and that females are fully functional members of that species, there's no reason or excuse for continued prejudice, discrimination, and abuse.
dus7: "I often wonder about the millennia of abuse of women (and children) by males. Is it power? Greed? A natural effect of testosterone which seeks challenges and longs to conquer?"
Good questions. The ones to answer these questions are men. And men are notoriously less able to express their emotions, especially owning up to the more difficult ones like need to control, feel powerful, etc.
Men, how about it? Answers?
I'm not sure you can get a man, or woman, who abuses others to answer that question really. There are a myriad number of excuses that each of them will use to justify the abuse of another human being. Just as there are a myriad number of ways to abuse another human. It's not all physical abuse either, some people are quite adept at inflicting damage using nothing more than their tongues.
We, as a species, don't respect each other very much. There are times when we do, and that is a good thing. But in general, the employer demands respect yet doesn't always earn that respect by respecting the people who work for them. The government demands respect, yet behaves in was that are utterly disrespectful. The police and courts act in the same manner.
I'm not sure if there are real answers, at least not answers that would lead to effective solutions that would prevent the violence in the first place. All I can do is not raise my fist in anger, then again I have been known to type some rather horrible things to the posters on CD who I don't respect at all...
In the past, most abuses may have been committed by a few men but that's only reported cases. We don't know how many women did the same because if men reported it, they would be insulted as the weak species. Normally, men are supposed to be the ones doing the most physical abuse while verbal abuse cuts even. To answer the question of abuses, the gender stereotyping must first go.
Oh stop it already!
You have no facts or data to support what is looking like mere male whine. GWNorth, vide supra, has supplied the numbers you've been crabbing for. Take your lumps already. Overwhelmingly, violence of all types is committed by men, and that includes violence against men - bar fight, football, or warfare. Men as well as "interest groups" recognize this and claim to want to change it. What hasn't been mentioned in the discussion is selective abortion - violence against females in utero, abandonment of female infants, the shocking number of female beggars in the streets of WAsian and SAsian countries, suttee, abandonment of elderly widows, FGM, etc. Take a look at warfare in the Congo - or Ethiopia, Somalia. Have you seen the executions of women in the sports stadiums of Afghanistan - executed by men. Female children everywhere are twice as likely to be sexually and physically abused.
Every authority, every planetary human rights agency, every sociological study recognizes that men commit most violence - against women (and, yes, men). Male on male violence is usually about a wide range of issues, but male on female violence is often based on gender, the purported issue being pretext.
Stop whining and face the facts that the entire world, even the most misogynistic countries, have long recognized. Is it true that men are too ashamed to report violence against them? How do you know? A couple of anecdotes by your pals do not amount to a reliable study. What you can count on is that much violence against women is also not reported - mainly because women know what happens to them when they do that.
That old line: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", (thanks, Maggie Thatcher) has only one good response: How do you know? And you don't.
More faith talk from you doesn't change anything. Again, you're only basing generalizations on what's reported to you without taking into consideration unreported incidents that could change the generalization were they reported. If you're just going to join the sorry crowd who whines about women being the only victims, then you're only part of the problem.
This is silly. Men are stronger, make more money and do not have to give birth. These three advantages alone allow them to abuse in the household. Add on top social prejudice embedded in law enforcement that makes men king of the household and often grants them the "rights" to control and beat their wives and children. Court testimony by women was not equal to that of men only a short while ago in the US. Pakistan is where our country was only 50 years ago on this issue.
On a world wide scale, many international decision making bodies whose work profoundly affects women and children are still practically wall to wall men. It's like racism. Anybody can feel it, but only those in power deal it.
Joe
The majority of abuse of children is committed by women. More women kill their children in the US each year than men kill their wives. Also please supply a link to the 1 in 3 women being abused around the world in their lifetime. A report by the US dept of health and human services - admin. for children and families, says 57 percent of domestic violence toward children is by women. I hate it when it is automatically stated (violence against women and children) It is an out and out lie. That aside, I agree with everything said and wonder at the need for religions to demonise and repress women. There is enough crap happening in the world against women. There is no need to exaggerate and demonise ALL men. I have been a victim of a vicious violent mother and so were all my cousins.
I had a discussion about the gender divide and exploitation and I believe that the corporate media wants it that way. They need to keep men angry as much as they can so they allow more reports of men committing violence against women to be reported but very few the other way around unless it's a groundbreaking case.
We can't really confirm whether the majority of abuses against children are committed by mothers or fathers. There are often generalizations based on past reports and that doesn't take into account unreported cases. Polling and reporting isn't perfect so I wouldn't count on them.
All it takes is one explosive act of violence against a woman and here they go generalizing violence against women. There has to be plenty of acts of violence against men that often go unreported. Polls showing that the public supports addressing violence against women don't help either. What about addressing violence against men? Women may not harm men directly as much as men harming women directly but women do the most in hiring for acts of violence against men but that goes unreported.
I have a serious concern about these special interests groups concerned about violence against women. Why aren't any of them lobbying the Obama administration to back away from Afghanistan and Pakistan? We don't need more laws protecting women alone because that doesn't stop violence against men. Wouldn't it be better if we stuck to stopping violence in general?
"The International Violence Against Women Act, a historic, bipartisan effort by the United States to address violence against women globally..." - What a joke. The US (and its partners in the Axis of Evil) are the ones who cause so much violence. The rule of SRDH applies here - anyone getting kicked in the teeth feels justified in kicking someone else who can't fight back - it doesn't matter what gender or age. If the fascist countries would address their political problems, violence against helpless victims would subside. I don't see that happening anywhere anytime soon.
Take a good look at Scandinavian countries and tell me why they don't have rampant abuse in their homelands - could it be that they have a decent functioning society that provides for everyone to have their needs met? The US needs to clean up its own back yard - and stay out of everyone else's. Then there would be some hope for the rest of the world. Advanced CIVILIZED countries know how to do this - it isn't exactly rocket science, you know!
I don't know that the ITAWA itself is a joke, but I agree with your other points, about what our military policies do, the insanity of us touting this thing while we do it, and the "not exactly rocket science."
When we want war, they tell us how terribly "those people" treat their women; when they want to get out, they tell us how important it is to "respect cultural differences." Meanwhile, our repeated involvements make things even worse for women than they were before. As in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In Denmark, where they not only have universal pre-k education, but actually consider such education as important as going to college, 50% of all university seats training teachers for pre-k education are required to go to men. That is, how can you raise a sane population of people, where men treat women with respect, if men don't share equal responsibilities in early child education? And if early childhood education isn't highly valued? Their educational systems, too, don't go the route of ours, for example, in the U.S. where segregation of genders -- although we don't -- is still the general tendency and considered what *should be* normal for boys and girls.
These countries, too, have the highest rates for women in government and some of the best health care and social security systems.
We know how this stuff goes hand in hand, but like the public education system in the United States, we keep trying to reinvent the wheel, when everyone already knows what it takes.
Gender-specific violence is a hate crime that is ultimately misanthropic.
Somehow I find it difficult to believe there is as much violence against men as there is against women and children.
Men are larger, have more strength, have power in most places, run the corporations and the media, comprise most of the police departments and military, make and control the laws, etc. etc. I find it difficult to believe that there is that much - IF ANY - of a problem of violence against them.
Men are the ones who commit sexual abuse against women and children. Women RARELY do this.
Men are the ones who for the most part execute and carry out wars and aggression against others. Women RARELY do this.
At the same time, no one is saying that violence against men is okay and not to be prevented.
The bottom line here is that violence - whether directed against women, children, or men - is UNACCEPTABLE.
"Somehow I find it difficult to believe there is as much violence against men as there is against women and children.
Men are larger, have more strength, have power in most places, run the corporations and the media, comprise most of the police departments and military, make and control the laws, etc. etc. I find it difficult to believe that there is that much - IF ANY - of a problem of violence against them."
That's only a perception. Men looking larger does not automatically mean that they are the more violent species as opposed to women. Women get more on the air. Why are more commercials featuring women looking so glitzy? Men may run the corporations, media, police, and military but that doesn't make them tops for violence.
"Men are the ones who commit sexual abuse against women and children. Women RARELY do this.
Men are the ones who for the most part execute and carry out wars and aggression against others. Women RARELY do this.
At the same time, no one is saying that violence against men is okay and not to be prevented."
Where are the numbers to actually prove it? Or is this just another generalized supposition based solely on what is reported? Lots of data goes unreported on both genders.
"The bottom line here is that violence - whether directed against women, children, or men - is UNACCEPTABLE."
That is something we can agree on.
Women and kids are more vulnerable. This cannot be ignored.
"Women and kids are more vulnerable. This cannot be ignored."
When you say vulnerable, vulnerable to what? Women might be more vulnerable to certain things as are men. I assume that you mean violence exclusively. What are you basing that on? Do you have actual data to prove it? Just because violence against men isn't reported as much doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Could you provide some data for us to look at? Thank you.
Martian: Same question back to you -
1. 'Just because violence against men isn't reported as much [as violence against women]' How do you know? Please provide some data for us to review.
2. You suggest that violence against men is close (maybe even nearing equivalency) to violence against women. What are you basing that on? Please provide some data.
And the answers are
1. Obviously, I can't give what isn't reported but that doesn't mean it isn't happening. I never said that men were certainly not reporting. We don't know what the numbers actually are unless the report is in. If greatrockyhill or anyone else can provide the numbers, your question would be answered.
2. I never suggested that but it is a possibility given the lack of reporting. Again, we don't know unless it's all reported. I've come across a lot of incidents of men being abused by women and they don't get reported. That's how I found out that the bias. Again, unknown but if greatrockyhill or anyone else has actual data, we would be assured which side is actually the bigger victim of the two.
In the USA Homicide rates.
Male kills male 65.2%
Male kills female 22.6%
Female kills male 9.7%
Female kills female 2.4%
Total 99.9%
That is obverall. The following are intimates. Ie Husband and wife.
http://www.batteredmen.com/gjdvdata.htm
>>Every year, 1,510,455 women and 834,732 men are victims of physical violence by an intimate. This is according to a Nov. 1998 Department of Justice report on the National Violence Against Women Survey. What does that mean? Every 37.8 seconds, somewhere in America a man is battered. Every 20.9 seconds, somewhere in America a woman is battered. Every 20.6 minutes another man in Washington is battered.
Si in a husband/wife or common law relationship women are twice as prone to violence but OVERALL.
>>In terms of gender, males were more likely to become crime victims than were females, with 79% percent of all murder victims being male. Males were also twice as likely to be carjacked as were females. In terms of income, all households had roughly the same chance of becoming victims of property crime. Yet, households with an annual income of less than $7,500 were far more likely to be assaulted, robbed and have their homes burgled.
http://www4.hrsdc.gc.ca/.3ndic.1t.4r@-eng.jsp?iid=61
I could not find US studies however in Canada men are victims of Violent crime more then women. In this link ythey also gave stats to the number of crimes not reported to police > They are not broken up by gender. (Keep in mind that Canadian Stats for assault and sexual assault are the level they are compared to US levels because more types of assault are included. It is hard to make country to country comparisons in that regard. So as example there is no crime called "rape" in Canada. It is all "sexual assault" and unwarranted touching (pinching a persons bottom) is considered Sexual assault)
None of this to suggest that Violence against women is not an issue. That said I think we have to recognize that the greater issue is VIOLENCE itself and that while it true that the majority of the victims of violent acts would seem to be men, the OVERWHELMING majority of perpetrators of violent crimes are men.
It's beginning to look like you have a problem. Sorry your relationship with an important female figure in your youth was so bad, really, but you can't let that colour the whole world. Facts are facts - data describe general trends only. that does not mean that your experience was false. It just means that the data provided by your situation fits into the smaller, not the larger, group.
AS long as there's no data, all you have is faith.
And still, after all these frantic posts from you, you have no evidence, just emotion...or faith. That needs looking at. Best wishes.
"Facts are facts - data describe general trends only. that does not mean that your experience was false. It just means that the data provided by your situation fits into the smaller, not the larger, group.
AS long as there's no data, all you have is faith."
You just contradicted yourself by stating that it's all faith based. Anyone can take one lousy incident against women and make a big kaboose out of it.
Martian Bachelor-How many men get raped every year or find themselves in abusive relationships from which they can't get out of?
Rape is only one form of violence which happens to be unique on women. There are other types of abuse that women may do more than men which goes unreported.
If women are in abusive relationships that they can't get out of, then unless we're talking lesbian relationships, men are also in those relationships so it sort of evens out the score.
Uhh, MB there is a difference between abuser and abused. In a great majority of the cases the abuser is male. We tend to be larger and have greater upper body strength. Our culture condones male on female violence, look at Chris Brown's male groupies when he beat Rihanna so badly. Finally, we have both the testosterone factor and we're more likely to have some experience fighting.
How about global castration at birth? It could help to reduce much of the violent "testosterone induced" global struggles against many things and might be considered more humane than some of the current methodologies.
My brother-in-law is an endocrinologist and would agree. It is tough in the medical world to get funding for R&D in curing testosterone induced aggression for political and religious reasons.
Hmmm. And does your sister also agree?
It has been scientifically proven that men tend to be more aggressive than women. A google search on "male aggression" will give you plenty of results to describe what makes the male species the more violent one. In this article, religion is also responsible for violence against women because, Christianity or Islam, the nature of the religion tends to favor men over women. Read the Koran and the Bible and see the whole thing for yourself. Put together, the biological and religious nature tend to actually make it harder for women to report violence while men can report anything. It is already a given in the Middle East that anytime a woman commits a crime, she is hanged immediately while men get more time to defend themselves. Read the history and the current events on the Middle East and see for yourself. Almost anyone from the Middle East will confirm this as well. This is not to say that violence against men is non-existent. Men are free to report it and often get faster attention and treatment while women are left to suffer the impact before they receive anything for treatment no matter how quickly they report it.
There have been concerns and reports of a rise in violence against men from women but even in such cases, it is usually proven beyond reasonable doubt that women were often pushed into it. Scientifically, it can be easily proven that the beauty of the female species is that they think twice before using force and will often use it as a last resort. Do a search on WebMD. Ditto for violence against children by mothers.
While it may be true that not everything is reported, there is already enough of a wide gap in gender violence reporting to conclude that most of the violence is against women and children and that needs to be taken care of first. The best method of lowering violence against women and children that I know of is to train men to reach the level of thinking in women in terms of thinking carefully before using force. That alone should not only reduce violence against women and children but men as well.
That's just another generalization that men are supposedly capable of violence as opposed to women. None of that denies the possibility that women can be just as violent as men once you give them the right environment.
"...religion is also responsible for violence against women because, Christianity or Islam, the nature of the religion tends to favor men over women. Read the Koran and the Bible and see the whole thing for yourself."
OK. Will do: From the Bible, Paul's letter to the Ephesians 5:
"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, ...let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband."
Who is being "favoured" here? Who carries the higher, the greater responsibility; the husband to love his wife as he loves himself, and to give himself for her, or the wife who is merely to "respect" her husband?" And this is from Paul who is commonly regarded as chauvinistic, or even a "women-hater".
Women are also encouraged to submit themselves to their husbands. Elsewhere, Christians are instructed to submit themselves "one to another" (1 Peter 5). What woman will have trouble submitting to a husband she knows has her best interests at heart before his own, loves her like his own body and is prepared to give himself for her?
Please, Carla - don't confuse Islam and Christianity. You might as well confuse hatred and love.
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Hey Gustave, I REALLY hope your post was just a misfired joke.
If it wasn't, Gustave is obviously suffering from brain stem damage.
The point that all violence needs to end is well taken though.
Hey everyone, let's not feed trolls.
If you see someone who you never otherwise see on CD pop up under a single issue frequently and then comment all the time in ways obviously meant to provoke people, it's better just to ignore that person. He or she isn't here to have a dialogue or discussion, but to steer us off course with his or her own agenda. It seems to happen with the greatest frequency with articles relating to women, abortion, and climate change.
I have nothing against women but doesn't a guy have a right to question the nature of such articles as these if he detects subtle bias?
All violent abuse of women, men, and children is wrong! We need to move away from seeing violence as a solution to problems. Especially the US and its client states need to move away from this authoritarian mentality.
AD
Identity politics...*sigh*
Yes there's violence against everyone, women, children, men. Women and children are just more susceptible to it and find different kinds of violence visited on them.
Pakistan needs to get online.
WOW! So many male support comments for equal battering, and so little time! Amazing...what was this article about....?
O.K. let's look at the 16 year old girl ( buried alive in Turkey) because she talked to boys. Did the parents of the boys hog tie the boys and suffocate them for talking to a girl? No.
Then, just recently, there was the 13 year old girl,( was this in Iraq?) who was raped on her way to visit her grandmother. She went to the police station for help and was accused of adultry....and then planted in a hole with her head above the ground and stoned to death by 50 men. Did anyone bother to look for the rapist? No.
In certain parts of India, when the dowry runs out, sometimes entire families kill the old bride for the potential dowry from the incoming bride. Let's not forget all those honor killings too.
In Africa, marauding soldiers, rape and sexually mutilate women. Women are raped as they walk long miles to gather firewood. This is NOT uncommon.
In America, a pregnant girl is labeled as a whore, but the sperm donor was just sowing wild oats. Boys will be boys, but the girls are whores? Who made up this rule? Grumpy old men!
Which college president ( no longer in office) declared that women can't do math? Does Sally Ride know this?
How many pregnant women are killled by boyfriends who can't think of any other way to get out of paying child support?
I think that what many of you are missing, is that this is a world wide institutional problem...oh, it does affect pay rates too.
No one is arguing that men aren't ever battered by women, or killed or horribly mistreated.........but the numbers, oh the numbers.......Cultures do choose to abort only the female children. Inheritance in some areas still goes only through the male.....
Look, if you have a sister, mother, grandmother, child who is raped.....don't disparage her.
If you pay 100 grand for your daughter's education, don't be surprised if she doesn't make the income that you have made.
I was tutoring a little by the other day, and as he read out loud, he stopped and said, " This story is wrong." I asked why. He said, "it says SHE...it's supposed to be HE."
Sorry fellas, but it starts very young....and it doesn't go away.
[WOW! So many male support comments for equal battering, and so little time! Amazing...what was this article about....?]
On and on and on.
The women who disappear while traveling are not thought of as important by the police until at least a dozen of them are gone in an area. Then, maybe, the police might try to look like they're doing something. Of course, in Canada if the women are native, then they'll not bother to look like they're doing much at all. The stories that concern how women are treated in the world make me wish that there really was an all powerful goddess who'd exact the proper price on those who commit the offences you mentioned, but not wait for the afterlife to do it.
If you want to complain that women can be vicious with their mouths, did you guys ever think the ladies might have good reason to treat you like you're a pile of %#^#$^???
"The women who disappear while traveling are not thought of as important by the police until at least a dozen of them are gone in an area."
Check out the site The Charley Project. That sites full of stories like that; young girl goes out walking, hitchhiking, is never seen again, and not reported for days if not weeks, months or years.
They did find Morgan Harrington, dead, her killer(s) unknown.
I have female friends that don't walk anywhere at night alone because men in cars follow them and harass them.
stardust: Which college president ( no longer in office) declared that women can't do math? Does Sally Ride know this?
That college President was former President of Harvard Larry Summers. He is now one of Obama's chief economic advisers.