Joining others in the ongoing international campaign against gender violence, women's groups in the United States stepped up pressure on Congress this week to endorse a proposed law that would protect women in poor countries.
"Gender-based violence is a serious threat to public health and a barrier to economic development," said Nora O'Connell of the Women's Edge Coalition, a Washington, DC-based organization that has developed the International Violence Against Women Act with the help of more than 50 other groups.
If it is approved, campaigners say, U.S. international assistance programs, which amount to billions of dollars each year, could prove much more effective in eliminating violence against women in developing countries.
Approximately one in three of the world’s women will experience violence in her lifetime and rates reach as high as 70 percent in some countries, according to Women's Edge.
"The idea behind the legislation is not to create a new international assistance program on violence against women," explained O'Connell, "but to integrate [anti-violence efforts] into all the many programs that already exist."
Other supporters of the legislation, including Amnesty International and the Family Violence Prevention Fund, say they are hopeful the next Congress will take up this issue sooner rather than later.
The call for new legislation is part of the global campaign known as 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence.
The campaign, which is held each year between the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (November 25) and International Human Rights Day (December 10), is fully backed by the United Nations and its various agencies.
"We are working with partners to end impunity--to protect the rights of women, including the right to sexual and reproductive health," said Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), last week.
UN researchers say violence against women persists in every country in the world as a pervasive violation of human rights that continues to hinder efforts for gender equality.
Last month, the UN released a new study on gender violence saying women continue to be victims of sexual harassment, human trafficking, and blatant discrimination worldwide.
The 113-page study is critical of UN member states 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 shows that at least 102 of the 192 UN member states have no specific legal provisions on domestic violence, and marital rape is not a prosecutable offense in as many as 53 countries.
It also points out that many countries have no sufficient support measures in place for victims of gender violence, nor do they keep any systematic or reliable data on violence against women.
The UNFPA estimates that 5,000 women are murdered by family members each year worldwide in so-called "honor killings"--crimes against women in the name of protecting "honor" within the family or community.
Commenting on the study's results, the outgoing UN chief Kofi Annan said such violence is "unacceptable whether perpetrated by the state and its agents or by family members or strangers, in the public or private sphere, in peacetimes, or in times of conflict."
According to official statistics, in India, nearly 7,000 women were killed in 2002 alone as a result of violence related to demands for dowry--the payment of cash or goods by the bride's family to the groom's family.
On the phenomenon of gender violence in developed countries, 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.
Other examples of gender violence that the UN researchers have documented so far include female genital mutilation, forced marriages, and rape.
Groups such as Women's Edge and Amnesty International say the issue of gender violence in developing countries demands not only local efforts, but international support as well.
"The local, grassroots efforts are critical for eliminating gender violence," O'Connell told OneWorld, but "increased U.S. participation in it is equally important."
"On the one hand, we are reaching out to women's groups in different regions of the world," she said, "but, on the other, it's very important to educate policy makers and the U.S. public that the solution we have put forth will make an impact on women's lives around the world."
"Gender-based violence is a serious threat to public health and a barrier to economic development," said Nora O'Connell of the Women's Edge Coalition, a Washington, DC-based organization that has developed the International Violence Against Women Act with the help of more than 50 other groups.
If it is approved, campaigners say, U.S. international assistance programs, which amount to billions of dollars each year, could prove much more effective in eliminating violence against women in developing countries.
Approximately one in three of the world’s women will experience violence in her lifetime and rates reach as high as 70 percent in some countries, according to Women's Edge.
"The idea behind the legislation is not to create a new international assistance program on violence against women," explained O'Connell, "but to integrate [anti-violence efforts] into all the many programs that already exist."
Other supporters of the legislation, including Amnesty International and the Family Violence Prevention Fund, say they are hopeful the next Congress will take up this issue sooner rather than later.
The call for new legislation is part of the global campaign known as 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence.
The campaign, which is held each year between the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (November 25) and International Human Rights Day (December 10), is fully backed by the United Nations and its various agencies.
"We are working with partners to end impunity--to protect the rights of women, including the right to sexual and reproductive health," said Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), last week.
UN researchers say violence against women persists in every country in the world as a pervasive violation of human rights that continues to hinder efforts for gender equality.
Last month, the UN released a new study on gender violence saying women continue to be victims of sexual harassment, human trafficking, and blatant discrimination worldwide.
The 113-page study is critical of UN member states 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 shows that at least 102 of the 192 UN member states have no specific legal provisions on domestic violence, and marital rape is not a prosecutable offense in as many as 53 countries.
It also points out that many countries have no sufficient support measures in place for victims of gender violence, nor do they keep any systematic or reliable data on violence against women.
The UNFPA estimates that 5,000 women are murdered by family members each year worldwide in so-called "honor killings"--crimes against women in the name of protecting "honor" within the family or community.
Commenting on the study's results, the outgoing UN chief Kofi Annan said such violence is "unacceptable whether perpetrated by the state and its agents or by family members or strangers, in the public or private sphere, in peacetimes, or in times of conflict."
According to official statistics, in India, nearly 7,000 women were killed in 2002 alone as a result of violence related to demands for dowry--the payment of cash or goods by the bride's family to the groom's family.
On the phenomenon of gender violence in developed countries, 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.
Other examples of gender violence that the UN researchers have documented so far include female genital mutilation, forced marriages, and rape.
Groups such as Women's Edge and Amnesty International say the issue of gender violence in developing countries demands not only local efforts, but international support as well.
"The local, grassroots efforts are critical for eliminating gender violence," O'Connell told OneWorld, but "increased U.S. participation in it is equally important."
"On the one hand, we are reaching out to women's groups in different regions of the world," she said, "but, on the other, it's very important to educate policy makers and the U.S. public that the solution we have put forth will make an impact on women's lives around the world."
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Comments: 13
speak and stand with strong ,and powerful women of this cause! We must join forcefully together, and peacefully to resolve such crimes.Let freedom and justice reign!
It is not appropriate for us to tell other countries what to do but we surely don't have to pay them for doing things that offend us when we have significant problems with violence against those who cannot defend themselves here at home. When we clean up pur own backyard maybe we will have the moral and financial authority to dictate to others.
And actually, based on my past and the work that I have done, I do know what I am talking about. And I want to see DV knocked out in the United States before we try to save the world.
I obhore domestic violence, but what I'm saying is that there are some things we might have to accept in order to move the world in a positive direction. I'm sure there are other, bigger problems in Afghanistan that we can make progress to, and in some countries, making such an effort against domestic violence would hurt those efforts. Plus, trying to change someone's culture, especialy for a country as proud as afghanstan, is a fools erand.
" Well, I thought I was going to leave this thread on that note but after reading Nanci B. and Daneil A. comments I am left with a sick feeling."
"You two have no idea what the hell you are talking about!"
"Nanci; I've been around the block with you here on these threads and you never cease to amaze me with your total lack of compassion and respect for women."
"Your idea of keeping the focus here in this country is disgusting and insulting to women of the world. It is bigoted and shallow."
"For you to denounce that this is an issue and money should not be afforded on a global level to help women worldwide is absurd."
"Don't waste your time arguing with me Nanci B. I know you too well. You squawking insult to parrots and women of the world!"
"For a "evangelica christian" as you say in your profile, it is people like you who give the word "hypocrit" a meaning within that religion."
"When I listen to people like Nanci and Daniel it's like taking a stab in my heart."
According to my count, that's 10 personal insults. " Actually, I never once have "hurled" a personal insult here on any comment thread and I comment a lot!".......please, quit talking out of your ass. (sorry, I couldn't resist) Your the kind of people that make people think that feminists are whiny, annoying, and don't know what your're talking about.
This does not mean that we shouldn't actively help all people, inculding women, be protected from violence and subgagation. A great movement called micrloaning is being used to help the poor all over the world. This involves giving small loans out to families or groups of families so they can develop economicaly, such as building irragation, sewing machines, and the like so they can get out of poverty in a sustained way. Many programs only make loans out to women because they have been found more likely to pay the loan back and that the contrabutions would be more likely to support entire families. Just recently, sombody who started such a program won a nobell prize. Programs such as this are important. However, dictating how men should treat their women is not always the best way of achiving progress for all the people in certain areas. We must be carefull and not make rash policy decisions, because certain policies may end up hurting everyone, including women.
In the responses to this article I see we have some that are "patriotic" (guardians of the small-hold: personal, cultural, national property defense/boundary-setting) and some that are "matriotic" (stewards of the great-hold: protecting and encouraging the highest good of all beings and the entire planet).
We need both kinds of energy - we just need them to be in balance, so we don't get into warmongering.
In the case of women worldwide? Here's the deal: at present all our militaries are patriot-focused, led by mostly male energy, and have no real thought for the damage done to mothers and children and elders and domestic and wild animals and plants, through warmongering.
It's most important, therefore, to invest several kinds of energy - and money is one, but not necessarily the most important - in shifting the balance, so that mothers and children and elders and all beings have their rights restored.
In brief (I'll elaborate in an article) here are the kinds of energy we can invest, and which DO make a BIG difference:
1. Trust in the MotherForce of Unconditional Love, which is the only thing that every truly changes anything for the better.
2. Awakened Will-To-Good, used with powerful One-Pointed Intention in thoughts and prayers sent to encourage groups of women. This is one way to use unconditional love and reap a huge harvest with it. [Those who are initiatied at high levels and have mastery of "loving the enemy" can transform all kinds of negative energy through healing prayer and meditations].
3. PRAISE OF NATURE / NATURAL BEAUTY / TRUTH-BEAUTY: honoring, respecting, praising the gifts we all share on this planet, increases the power available for self-healing and for assisting others. Finding every possible truth/beauty we can to celebrate, magnifies the available GOOD we can send with our one-pointed intention to assist others in their self-healing.
Very important: we must not tell others how to change themselves - we must only support their energy for changing things for the better, whatever that is for them.
Since we're all one, that will work out best for all of us.
4. Funding
My hope is that those reading this will find it respectful of all individuals and of nations as well, and honoring of all of our self-healing abilities and our groupmind healing ability.