As Hillary Clinton remarked: "Violence against women is not a female issue. It is a human rights issue".
Worldwide, as if an epidemic, women are facing not only discrimination but supression of rights and even state sanctioned violence, as reported by Amnesty International . In Western societies, home is the most dangerous place to a woman - a female victim of violence is more likely to be the victim of her boy-friend, husband or other relative than a victim of random act of violence.
In many other, non-Western countries, female refugees and immigrants are vulnerable to all sorts of abuse. War-time brings out the worst in people, and during wars women are routinely being raped and violated - not only by the enemy but the stressed out males of their own society as well. Most crimes against women will not be investigated at all and in many countries law is flawed, thus offering practically no protection to a woman. Regarding domestic abuse in these countries, the more patriarchal the society, the more likely domestic violence is to be hushed up. Often then police will not even get involved in what they claim to be family or private matters.
Here are some figures from the Amnesty International:
- At least one out of every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex, or abused in her lifetime. This figure comes from a study based on 50 surveys from around the world.
- More than 60 million women are “missing” from the world today as a result of sex-selective abortions and female infanticide.
- Every year, millions of women are raped by partners, relatives, friends and strangers, by employers and colleagues, soldiers and members of armed groups.
- Violence in the family is endemic all over the world; the overwhelming majority of victims are women and girls. In the USA, for example, women account for around 85 per cent of the victims of domestic violence.
- The World Health Organization has reported that up to 70 per cent of female murder victims are killed by their male partners.
As we are just celebrating a day to stop violence against women, I urge you to go to the Amnesty web site and sign their petition to stop violence against women. You can also get involved in your local community or start a group against domestic violence. This one is certainly a global problem that touches every race, religion and societal class. You cannot know if it will touch you one day! Therefore, it is everyone's moral duty to do something about it.
posted by Emilia.kk @ 8:41 AM
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