Violence against Women

Though rape is notoriously underreported, estimates say that one in five women will become a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime. Rape has nothing to do with sexual desire of the perpetrator, but everything to do with power and control over the victim. 

Women endure not only the physical and psychological trauma of rape, but also the stigma, shame and fear that frequently keep them from seeking help and legal redress. The perpetrators go unpunished, the climate of impunity flourishes, and the culture of abuse is perpetuated.

A greater travesty takes place in war zones, that of sexual terrorism. Women’s bodies have become the battleground, and sexual violence has become the weapon.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been brutally raped since war began in 1998. In some cases, whole villages are surrounded, and every woman and girl, regardless of age, is raped, by individuals and gangs, by men and boys infected with HIV/AIDS, often using tools, weapons and broken bottles to rape the women. Husbands and children are forced to watch the humiliation of their wives and mothers.

Women are left with severe damage to internal organs, frequently leaking urine and feces from their torn vaginas. The fortunate few find their way to places like Panzi Hospital in Bukavu where their physical injuries may be surgically repaired. Many women can never reproduce again. HIV/AIDS is rife among them.

The psychological damage is severe and long term. Shame and fear become constant companions for the women. The risk of rape is so high that women fear going out to collect water, work in the fields, go to markets and sleep in their homes. Malnutrition, disease and poverty spiral out of control.

Rape survivors often are cast out by their families and communities because of shame, superstition and religious beliefs. It is rare for these women to marry again. Cast out, they are unable to care for themselves or their children. The children born of rape are often abandoned. Families and entire communities are destroyed.

Rape is used to intimidate local communities to gain access to the DRC’s vast mineral resources, which are in turn sold for weapons. The effects of sexual violence are so far reaching that the whole society is devastated and given over to lawlessness, and development is stalled. As one researcher for USAID put it, “wave upon wave [of sexual violence] causes moral and social fabric disintegration.” [2] 

In a country the size of western Europe with little infrastructure, the 17,000 UN troops currently in the DRC are inadequate to overcome the anarchy that reigns. The culture of impunity enables the sexual violence to continue. For the women, social services, protection, legal remedies, medical resources, and places of refuge are painfully lacking, despite the valiant efforts of local NGOs. And the nations of the world turn their faces away.

Violence causes more death and disability worldwide amongst women aged 15-44 than war, cancer, malaria or traffic accidents. [3]

Around the world, half of the women who die from homicides are killed by their intimate partners. [4]

One in three women worldwide has been beaten, coerced into sex, or abused in some other way, most often by someone she knows. One in four women were abused during pregnancy. [5]

Three out of four fatalities of war are women and children. [6]

In Rwanda half a million women were raped during the 1994 genocide, 60,000 were reported raped in the war in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The incidence of rape in places like Darfur, Northern Uganda and Sierra Leone may never be known. [7]

Sexual assault is recognized by the International Criminal Court as a crime against humanity and a war crime. [8]

At the UN World Summit in September 2005, nations of the world overwhelmingly agreed to support the principle of Responsibility to Protect, which declares that states have a primary responsibility to protect their own populations from gross human rights violations, and that the international community has a responsibility to intervene through diplomatic negotiation, economic sanctions, political pressure, or military intervention when these governments fail to protect the most vulnerable among us. [9]

UNIFEM’s Say NO to Violence against Women campaign is a global advocacy and awareness-raising effort to end violence against women. The UNIFEM initiative aims to demonstrate that there is a global movement of people who demand that ending violence against women be a top priority for governments everywhere. [10]