“A crime against women, a crime against wives. When the one you love commits an act of sexual violence against you, the scars lie deep and buried.”

BY LOUISE MCORMOND-PLUMMER

In 1987, I became free of a relationship that almost cost me my life. For two years, I had lived with a man who thought love equaled ownership, and who retaliated brutally when challenged. He had beaten me, threatened me with weapons, and terrorized me in other ways. Other things had happened in that relationship, too. This man forced sex on me many times, as punishment for his jealousy, when he needed to assert power, or just because I said no. Though it was the threats to my life that seemed most frightening at the time, I was not to realize until years later the severe damage inflicted by the sexual abuses. And I knew that even had I wanted to admit what happened or say that it hurt, I would get little empathy. It couldn't have done me any real harm - hadn't I willingly been in his bed? And didn't that imply unlimited consent? No, it was not real rape and my pain was not real pain. I had internalized the myth that "real" rape is committed by men with hairy palms and glazed expressions lurking in alleyways.

Nevertheless, some time after leaving, I began to seek new ways of making sense of my experiences. In studying partner rape, I found out how shockingly prevalent it is. Researchers have been telling us this for twenty years:

“A 1985 study estimated that 10 to 14 per cent of married women have been or will be raped by their spouses.¹

“In researching marital rape, Diana Russell conducted 930 interviews with women from a cross-section of race and class. Russell concluded that rape in marriage is the most common yet most neglected area of sexual violence.²

“In 2002, the British Home Office published the results of a survey on sexual assault responded to by 6,944 women. 45 percent of rapes were committed by present partners, with a further 11 percent by past partners. This study also found that partner rape entails the highest occurrence of multiple rape and degree of physical injury.³

Further, research shows that men who rape their partners are more likely to kill them.⁴ Contrary to the widely-held myth that partner rape does no real harm to the victim, studies indicate that partner rape carries longer and graver implications than for women raped by strangers.¹

So, we see that partner rape is common, potentially life-threatening and highly traumatic. Yet, in attempting to heal, I found that despite the research, little was being said about marital/partner rape in a way that was accessible to many women who had experienced it. Much rape-recovery literature focused on stranger or one-off acquaintance rape, and wasn't scoped to capture the complexity of issues partner rape survivors often face. Domestic violence literature in general pointed out rape as another form of abuse, without going into the areas of special wounding that rape causes. The problem with this is stated by Finkelhor and Yllo: 'When treated as battered women, the wounds left by the sexual abuse often go unaddressed'.¹

I decided that I wanted to write not about partner rape - the studies had already done that - but for survivors. I gathered the stories of nine women from around the world, and my co-author, Dr. Patricia Easteal (also a survivor of partner rape), who has written several works about gendered violence, gathered twenty more. We fused these brave women's voices with marital rape studies, our own professional knowledge, and available literature of recovery from rape, domestic violence and trauma. In 2006, our book, Real Rape Real Pain: Help for Women Sexually Assaulted by Male Partners was published and launched.

Besides being a useful aid to counselors and workers, the book is for women who are still with the partners who raped them, those women who have left, or those contemplating doing so. We begin by speaking about emerging memories and feelings that may arise as women read, and suggest that they seek help from a counselor. Because partner rape is surrounded by so much social mythology about what real rape is, early chapters confront and deconstruct myths, reframing them with truth. Chapter Six looks at perpetrators and why they rape, with a view to giving them back responsibility. We then look at issues like leaving, safety strategies, and coping with feelings in the aftermath. Later chapters focus on the legal process, healing, sexuality and future relationships. Explored also is secondary wounding, (those responses by unsupportive people that compound the survivor's trauma), Post-Traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and specific effects of partner rape. The last two chapters speak to people supporting a survivor, and finally, the changes that need to happen in society to bring partner rape out of silence.

Our hope is that readers who have experienced marital/partner rape will know that they're not alone, that what happened to them is a crime and a real wound for which they deserve healing and support.

References 1 Finkelhor, D., and Yllo, K., License to Rape: Sexual Abuse of Wives, The Free Press, New York, 1985 2 Russell, D., (1990), Rape in Marriage, MacMillan Publishing Company, USA 3 Myhill, A. and Allen, J., (2002), Rape and Sexual Assault of Women: Findings from the British Crime Survey, (Online) Viewed 16 October, 2006, homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/r159.pdf. 4 Bergen, R., Wife Rape: Understanding the Reponses of Survivors and Service Providers, (1996), Sage Publications Inc., California.

Dr Patricia Easteal 0405143702

Adjunct Professor in Law School of Law University of Canberra Canberra, ACT 2601 02 6201 5779 (tel) 02 6201 5764 (fax) patricia.easteal@canberra.edu.au

Real Rape Real Pain: Help for Women Sexually Assaulted by Male Partners

Top of Page

 

Cambodian Acid Violence against Women

By

William Grut, MD, Rose Charities

Acid violence defies any bounds of comprehension. It is a violation born and nurtured in hell itself, a pitiless, hideous evil. It takes away both skin and flesh and the very soul of the victim. And it does so with finality that is often absolute.

As a physician, I saw my first acid violence injury around 10 years ago. I had set up Rose charities as an extension of my previous organization, Project Iris. Iris dealt with eye injury and sight restoration but so many injuries extended beyond the eye to the face and torso. Rose went beyond the eye to facial and other injuries. Word had gone around that there were “foreign doctors” helping the injured and had set up a simple operative and treatment clinic on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.

My First Case of Acid Violence Against Women:

My first experience with this heinous manifestation of violence against women remains seared in my memory. I came in in the morning and she was there in the waiting area, brought in by a friend. She sat there on the hard wooden bench. I took her hand. She could not cry, she had no tear ducts since the skin fused tightly over where here eyes may or may not lie underneath. She just gazed forward; her skin mottled leather membrane, shrink-wrapped; her face no longer with any elasticity or ability to display any expression. Her name is Vanna.

Vanna had been beautiful, and for many poor, oppressed Cambodian women it is their only possession of value. Before becoming a victim, she had a low paying job in a restaurant. She had a boyfriend. The story goes: One day Vanna refused the advances of a much older man, a government official of some importance. Later that evening two men were waiting for her. They held her down and slowly poured the acid on her beautiful face. And then they continued to hold her while it did its work.

That’s the thing. Simply throwing acid in someone’s face might give the person time to rush to water and prevent much of the damage. But when the victim is held, the acid will continue working. It can be poured onto specific areas; the eyes, the genitals, the breasts and there are cases where large quantities, like a bucket-full, of acid is simply flung at the victim. If the victim can then get to a source of water very quickly she can limit the amount of damage – though it may still be severe, irreversibly damaging her eyes.

It is hard even now, even as a physician who has seen many physical horrors in a lifetime to think back on Vanna’s face and body. It was as though the world had brought out a being so alien, so mutated that no one would ever recognize it.

What We Know About the Problem

Now, some 10 years later I have seen so many victims of acid burn attacks at our Rose Charities Surgical Rehabilitation or Eye Centers. Although statistics are scanty and subject to the inaccuracies of translation (Khmer is a notoriously difficult language to translate into English with the same exact retention of meaning) it would seem that around 50% of attacks are the consequence of real or perceived extramarital affairs or other aspects of life leading to seeking of revenge. This is an extreme and tragic consequence of men seeking to control women.

And there are more victims. An additional 15% are secondary victims, usually a child, who have gotten in the way of thrown acid. The rest, not the result of gender-based violence but rather arise from civil disputes, such as over land and other property. Cambodia’s history of conflict and succession of imposed governments has ensured an enormous uncertainty in land ownership, resulting in claims and counter claims.

Historical Influence

Cambodia’s conflicts of the last 50 years have been extreme and brutal. Despite attempts to keep neutral, the country became heavily involved in the Vietnam war, its people first being hit by both sides, before eventually succumbing to one of the most genocidal regimes of human history, that of the Khmer Rouge. In this period, some 2 million persons were slaughtered, tortured, starved, or worked to death. Women were forcibly married to strangers, forced to watch as their children were taken away or their babies bayoneted in front of them.

The injury and illness of conflict and post-conflict can be discussed in three broad categories; primary, secondary, and tertiary. There is ‘primary’ injury that is mostly associated with wars; bullet wounds, blast injuries, etc. Then there is ‘secondary’ victimization, which is the disease or untreated trauma caused by the conflict and the induced breakdown of infrastructure. Third, there is the ‘tertiary’ category, perhaps the most pernicious, the most long-term, and an injury of the mind where the control of others is linked with violence, fear, and terror. While sadly, as we know from global prevalence data, the control and abuse of women is not only restricted to post-conflict scenarios, however, it may well be one reason why it remains rife in Cambodia.

The throwing of acid is particularly linked with the second and third categories above. A very weak and corrupt legal and law enforcement system means that the control by physical abuse is rarely punished, or prevented. The direct injuries can be inflicted with almost no fear of being apprehended by the legal authorities, and in the event that this does occur, it is easy to buy immunity with an appropriate payment to the right person.

Long-term Consequences and How Rose Charities is Helping

Rose Charities has been dealing with the results of violence against women in Cambodia since 1998. Over this time the range of acid injury has been very wide indeed, from a few superficial injuries covering one or two isolated areas to up to 60% or more of the body covered with deep penetration, even down to bone. The eyes, ears, and nose may be partially or entirely burned away.

Acid burns create a spectrum of disabilities for the survivor ranging far beyond the terrible disfigurement and physical disability. Livelihoods are ruined; there is social stigmatization, and breakup of families, marriages and relationships. Full time care is often needed and in a country such as Cambodia, this care is not provided in any way by the state. If the victims have no family or friends to look after them then they will be utterly outcast. So often the attack takes from the victim the only real asset owned in a quagmire of poverty, her physical beauty, which in many societies is the only way for a woman to advance. So the damage is also both psychological and social.

Medical and surgical help may be limited. Rose Charities has two operative surgical / medical facilities in the Phnom Penh area to try to assist the victims. One deals specifically in eye care and the other with general rehabilitative surgery. Experienced Cambodian surgeons direct both facilities. One of these, Dr Nous Sarom is probably Cambodia’s most experienced maxillofacial surgeon and has trained extensively both with Rose Charities and previously with other organizations including Doctors without Borders. Acid contact with the skin can have an effect akin to ‘melting’. Thus adjacent areas, such as a limb with the trunk or the space between fingers, can end up being fused together. There is also a shrinking effect so that the joints can be pulled into horrific distortions. Simple surgery can usually manage to release these adhesions and contractures but more complex injuries to areas such as ears, eyes, noses, or lips ideally need specialized reconstructive surgery, usually beyond the scope of the facilities available in Cambodia. Eyelids are a particular problem. Even if the eyeball itself is spared, a functioning lid is necessary to keep the surface of the eye lubricated, otherwise it will dry out, ulcerate and eye will be destroyed. Often, in the absence of the sophisticated facitlies needed, the most appropriate action is simply to suture up the remaining lids themselves, thus protecting the eye below for some unspecified time in the future when it may be exposed again.

Physiotherapy, preferably with specialized burns therapists, is hugely important, but again such personnel are limited and the specialized training is lacking in Cambodia. Needed are facilities for the lengthy rehabilitation process, vocational training, reintegration, etc.

Conclusion

Cambodia is a small country with a population of warm, artistic people who have a long cultural heritage leading back to roots in the great empires of South Asia. Cambodian lives are full of tradition, ceremony and colour. People smile a lot. I think back to those smiles and my heart goes out again to those who cannot smile. The world can be harsh and cruel, but surely little surpasses the cruelty of the acid attack.

Over the years, Rose Charities has done what it can on its budget to improve the situation through training of surgeons, encouraging specialized teams to visit Cambodia, and occasionally managing to send a particularly bad case overseas for treatment. Funds for such operations are limited. But the work continues.

Rose Charities is a partner organization of the “One in Three Women” campaign, and together we work to raise awareness and stop the destruction of violence against women in the world.

This article was written for One in Three Women by Dr. Grut.

www.RoseCharities.org

Top of Page

One in Three© JOINS THE RESPONSE TO A STUDY ON GLOBAL PEACE THAT EXCLUDES VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AS ONE OF ITS TWENTY-FOUR INDICATORS OF PEACE.

 

There is little debate anymore about the prevalence of men’s violence against women (VAW) in the world. Gender-based violence is a worldwide epidemic and shows up in crime data as high percentages of assault crimes, rapes, and murders. Decades of research also confirms that much violence against women is not reported and many governments do not document it, and those are two important factors in tracking prevalence. Plain and simple, violence against women and the impact on women’s lives around the world are largely ignored; behaviors are tolerated and viewed as norms, and policy makers, legislators, leaders of institutions, and most men stay uniformed, often ignorant of the problem. Sadly, because of this many women internalize much abuse and stay silent for years. Thankfully, their voices are being captured more and more, and the true scope of the problem has come to light; there is more research, more improvements to systems where women seek help, and an encouraging and growing worldwide movement of men organizing against VAW.

What is violence against women?
Violence against women (VAW) is a violation of women’s fundamental human rights and is both a cause and a consequence of women’s inequality. It includes; rape and sexual abuse of girls; female genital mutilation, forced and early marriage, stalking, crimes in the name of ‘honour’, trafficking and sexual exploitation, sexual harassment and domestic violence. (http://www.endviolenceagainstwomen.org.uk)

Now we have the Global Peace Index (GPI), an index developed to measure peace. In our view, this is forward thinking, progressive, and a good direction for what should be measured, except for one ghastly oversight. There is no index, or accounting, for men’s violence against women. Recently published as “a groundbreaking milestone in the study of peace,” and using twenty-four (24) indicators, the GPI is the first-ever study to rank countries according to their level of peacefulness.

How is this possible? Peace in the world cannot truly be measured when violence perpetrated against women by men is omitted. And what does not using an undeniably epidemic level of VAW and children as a factor of measurement in this study say about how invisible this oppression actually is? In fact, we could find no mention of VAW anywhere on the GPI Web site.

The failure of the Index to include VAW is being discussed in e-mails, on Websites, and written about in newsletters. This is an excellent opportunity for dialogue, education, and political activism with our constituents and each other. VAW must be understood more broadly; more men must identify with the problem, produce different messages for awareness and prevention, and become involved with the work to end something that is so destructive and in all of our best interests to address. For a gendered problem based in sexism, an oppression of one group against another, to continue at the epidemic rate it does, means that women’s silence and internalization of their experiences still exists as a pre-condition of its prevalence, as does the ongoing collusion of non-violent men through silence, inaction, and unexamined sexist behavior.

Two good things this study has stimulated are conversations about the lack of peace in the world, especially for women and children, and it has generated critical thinking questions about what a peaceful country looks like. And we know we can only speak credibly about studying and measuring peace when VAW prevalence information and research is included in some reliable manner.

The World Health Organization (WHO), reports in 2005 that their intimate partners subjected 50 percent of women in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Peru to physical or sexual violence. The WHO study found Ethiopia with the highest rate [of VAW] at 71 percent. (Elizabeth Rosenthal, "Women Face Greatest Threat of Violence at Home, Study Finds," The New York Times, 6 Oct 2006.

The GPI’s 24 indicators of peace are divided into three key thematic categories, measuring: 1) ongoing domestic and international conflict, 2) societal safety, and 3) security and militarization. Women and children are enormously impacted and suffer disproportionately on a daily basis from lack of peace due to external and internal systemic conflict, such as organized crime and military conflict, and their country’s failure to provide safety and security in homes and communities. If we accept at face value the methodology and analysis of the GPI, then we would assume that a country ranked as having a high level of peacefulness would therefore provide a safe and secure environment for women and children, and this is patently not the case, anywhere. Women and men organizing in every country against gender-based violence and for peace, and reliable prevalence data showing epidemic rates of VAW speak for themselves. An unintended consequence of omitting VAW specifically from the GPI (there is a token amount captured in the assault and other crime categories) is that it now fails to be a useful tool for the anti-violence community.

As we understand more about social change and VAW prevention, and as we unite on a global level to make the efforts to end VAW stronger and more strategic, then we become more effective in pressuring countries to reform policies and/or enforce existing ones. As we present a stronger influence on businesses and corporations operating globally and doing business in countries who are not doing a good job of documenting and working to end VAW, then we gain leverage with the business/corporate community to make positive change with countries. Recent history tells us that positive social change within countries is achievable. Global boycotts and protests against governments and corporations doing business in and with South Africa successfully contributed to the dismantling of apartheid.

Globalization has its dark side.

The GPI cites business as one sector that will benefit from the study. What the study does not speak to is a dark side of globalization, the trafficking of women and girls.

An unintended consequence of omitting VAW statistics, they are captured in the assault and some other crime categories, from a peace study is that it could have served as a helpful tool for the anti-violence community. As we understand more about social change and VAW prevention and as we unite on a global level to make the efforts to end VAW stronger and more strategic, then we create more pressure on countries to reform policies and/or enforce existing ones; we enhance collaboration with the business/corporate community to leverage this information and make positive change with countries who are not doing a good job of documenting and working to end VAW, yet who want to increase the presence of foreign businesses.

GPI cites business as one sector that will benefit from the study. What the study does not speak to is a dark side of globalization, the trafficking of women and girls.

There are many factors that endanger women and children and create the norms and the foundation for men’s violence against women to be the longest standing epidemic, languishing in silence and shame. Economic factors are major and increased low-wage employment and self-employment is a consequence of gender discrimination. Widespread trafficking in women and girls has become part of globalization. Women and girls are sold into prostitution and subjected to mental and physical abuse until agreeing to become a sex worker; many sex workers contract AIDS and die as a result. The Internet has opened portals into child trafficking, child pornography, sex-tourism, cyber-sex, marriage brokering, and bride purchasing. Transnational trafficking has benefited from global markets and current labor forces. Certain countries allow it to foster by relaxing travel barriers and work permits; it is easier to do business with countries willing to be recipients of trafficked people. Trafficked individuals who have entered a country illegally are unlikely to report crimes perpetrated against them; their experiences with violence or even their deaths will not be represented in the GPI analysis.

Although the Government of Argentina is ranked # 52 in the GPI it does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking as stated in the following excerpt:
“Argentina is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Most victims are trafficked within the country, from rural to urban areas, for exploitation in prostitution. Argentine women and girls also are trafficked to neighboring countries and Western Europe for sexual exploitation. Foreign women and children, primarily from Paraguay and Brazil, are trafficked to Argentina and Western Europe for commercial sexual exploitation. Bolivians and Peruvians are trafficked into the country for forced labor in sweatshops and agriculture. Reported cases of human trafficking have increased in Argentina, which may be due to growing public awareness of the issue, as well as a higher number of migrants in the country, some of whom are vulnerable to being trafficked”. http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2007/

Former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan has stated that violence against women is ‘… perhaps the most shameful human rights violation, and it is perhaps the most pervasive. It knows no boundaries of geography, culture or wealth. As long as it continues, we cannot claim to be making real progress towards equality, development and peace. http://www.amnesty.org.uk/svaw/vaw/inter national.shtml

Conclusion: GPI as a limited tool

The GPI states, “Most people understand the absence of violence as an indicator of peace.” We submit that to determine the peacefulness of any country as well as to create and internalize global solutions to a specific, egregious pandemic of violence, the safety and security of women and children must be included and examined as a separate index.

Women’s human rights are directly linked and intertwined with issues of peace, prosperity, and healthcare, and we must continue to advance these rights. If we are to build and sustain cultures of peace we must join a global effort that exists today in many countries. According to the GPI’s Media Overview, approximately one half billion people have seen or heard something about the GPI since its launch on May 30th, 2007. Sadly, this is a missed opportunity to potentially raise the awareness of many people about the worldwide epidemic of VAW.

The GPI states an important premise: “Peace and sustainability are the cornerstones of humanity’s survival in the 21st century.” While we agree strongly with this statement, until VAW is included in their list of major challenges (global climate change, accessible fresh water, ever decreasing bio-diversity, and over population), and until an overall gendered lens is applied to the index, the report, although a good start, is a limited tool and cannot be used as a reputable analysis of global peace.

One in Three© seeks to build relationships of interconnectedness between those working to dismantle a worldwide culture of violence perpetrated against women and children.

Top of Page

 

---

 

HARMFUL TRADITIONAL AND CULTURAL PRACTICES RELATED TO VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND SUCCESSFUL STRATEGIES TO ELIMINATE SUCH PRACTICES – WORKING WITH MEN

United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) Expert Group Meeting - Strategies for Implementing the Recommendations from the Secretary-General’s Study on Violence Against Women with Particular Emphasis on the Role of National Machineries, Bangkok, Thailand, 26-27 April 2007.

 

by: Dr Michael Flood
Postdoctoral Fellow
Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS)
La Trobe University

 

Introduction

In this paper, I offer an overview of strategies for the primary prevention of men’s violence against women. I focus on working with men to end violence against women, and I situate this within a wider framework of violence prevention.

I begin by outlining the rationale for addressing men in efforts to prevent violence against women. I comment briefly on the category of ‘harmful traditional and cultural practices’ and other forms of violence against women. I then offer a framework identifying six key levels of intervention in violence prevention. I discuss examples of working with men in each, and I identify effective or promising strategies in work with men. The final section of the paper then explores some key challenges in working with men.

Men’s roles in preventing violence against women

Efforts to end violence against women must address men. This notion is increasingly accepted in violence prevention circles. There is a threefold rationale for engaging men (and boys) in efforts to prevent intimate partner violence. First, violence prevention must address men because, while most men do not perpetrate intimate partner violence, intimate partner violence is perpetrated largely by men. Second, constructions of masculinity play a crucial role in shaping some men’s perpetration of physical and sexual assault. Third, and more hopefully, men have a positive role to play in helping to end men’s violence against women (Flood 2005-2006).

The third element here embodies the recognition that violence is an issue of concern to women and men alike and that men have a stake in ending violence against women. Feminist work on violence against women has always recognised and hoped for the positive and non-violent roles that men can play. But this hope only recently has been translated into prevention programs and policy. Some feminist women are nervous about or opposed to men’s inclusion, for understandable reasons. Men’s participation in anti-violence work involves a delicate politics, as I have explored in detail elsewhere (Flood 2005a). Nevertheless, the inclusion of strategies aimed at men and masculinities is necessary if our prevention efforts are to be successful. More generally, there is growing international support for the belief that we must involve men in efforts to build gender equality.

Involving men in ending harmful traditional and cultural practices

This threefold rationale for involving men in violence prevention applies to all forms of violence against women, including harmful traditional and cultural practices. First, practices such as honour killing of wives, dowry-related violence, forced marriage, and trafficking are often perpetrated directly by men, while other practices such as sex-selective abortion, female genital mutilation / cutting, and early marriage of girl children, are perpetrated with men’s involvement and complicity. Second, these practices are sustained by patriarchal constructions of masculinity and unequal gender relations. Third, men do have a potentially positive role to play in eliminating such practices.

While a wide variety of international efforts now seek to involve men in violence prevention, very few thus far have directly addressed harmful traditional and cultural practices in particular. The two forms of violence against women here in which there has been most effort to engage men are female genital mutilation and prostitution. While practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM) are perpetrated by communities in general rather than men in particular, it is clear that addressing men’s attitudes and behaviours is critical in eliminating them. In Somalia for example, women’s organisations campaigning against FGM quickly realised that they must address men. Some men were strongly resistant and hostile to anti-FGM campaigns, and some saw FGM as necessary to ensure their daughters’ sexual ‘purity’ before marriage and preserve their family honour (Dini 2007). In Burkino Faso, it is fathers who play the most important role in deciding whether to circumcise a girl (Population Council 1999: 93). (I give further examples of efforts to involve men in ending female genital mutilation or cutting in my discussion below of the need to involve male community leaders.) In relation to prostitution and trafficking, clearly it is critical to address the ‘demand’ side of such industries. For example, a project in the Philippines focused on educating young men (Coalition Against Trafficking in Women Asia Pacific 2006), while a number of other community and legal strategies have been tried or canvassed (Hughes 2004).

Whether we are working to end harmful traditional and cultural practices or other forms of violence against women and girls, our efforts must include strategies addressed to men. We will only make progress if we involve men. Violence prevention work among men aims to lessen the likelihood that they will use violence. Effective strategies challenge the beliefs, values and discourses which support violence, challenge the patriarchal power relations which sustain and are sustained by violence, and promote alternative constructions of masculinity, gender and selfhood which foster non-violence and gender justice.

The primary prevention of violence against women: Definitions, scope, and evaluation

Defining primary prevention

Violence prevention aimed at men and boys requires a range of strategies at multiple levels of the social order: programs in schools and among youth, media campaigns, interventions among particular groups of men such as athletes and soldiers, and grassroots mobilisations. These strategies can be described as ‘primary’ prevention, in that they aim to lessen the likelihood of boys and men using violence in the first place. ‘Secondary’ prevention refers to reducing opportunities for violence by supporting the men who are at risk of perpetrating violence. ‘Tertiary’ prevention aims to prevent the re-occurrence of violence, and refers to work with men who have already used violence. Tertiary prevention thus centres on perpetrator programs, and it may be more accurate to describe this as violence intervention.

Scope: Harmful traditional and cultural practices and other forms of violence against women and girls

There is little evidence with which to assess the effectiveness of primary prevention efforts in relation to violence against women in general, let alone in relation to particular forms of violence such as harmful traditional and cultural practices. Therefore, my discussion does not focus on the elimination of harmful traditional practices in particular, but on men’s violence against women more generally.

The strategies and insights I offer here are readily applicable to harmful traditional and cultural practices in particular, as they are to other forms of violence against women or girls. At the same time, they may need to be adapted in addressing particular forms of violence. Whether we are addressing female genital cutting, or husbands’ rape of their wives, or violence in youth’s dating relationships, our strategies must be responsive to the particular and distinct characteristics of the violence in question: their dynamics and trajectories, the social norms and power relations which sustain them, and the contexts in which they occur.

There is debate regarding the category of ‘harmful traditional and cultural practices’. While I will not explore this in detail, I wish to note that forms of violence against women and girls in Western countries also can be described as both ‘traditional’ and ‘cultural’. In Western countries, men’s physical and sexual violence against women has existed for long periods and has been institutionalised and normalised in laws and policies (Straton 2002). Men’s violence against women also is cultural, in the sense that it is grounded in and maintained by longstanding social and cultural norms, as the recent Secretary General’s report (2006: 31) acknowledges. In fact, in Western and non-Western countries alike, sexual assault and domestic violence are sustained by widespread norms of gender and sexuality (Flood and Pease 2006). For example, sexual coercion operates through ‘normal’ heterosexual norms and relations among adolescents, according to a study in New Zealand and Britain (Hird and Jackson 2001). Boys’ sexually coercive behaviour is seen as ‘normal’, and girls are compelled to accommodate male ‘needs’ and desires in negotiating their sexual relations. At the same time, the forms of violence grouped under the category of ‘harmful traditional and cultural practices’ are likely to have distinct dynamics and determinants.

Evaluations of effectiveness

In identifying the most promising strategies for the primary prevention for violence against women, we must be guided by both research on the determinants of this violence and evidence for the effectiveness of particular interventions. In relation to the second source of guidance, we face two significant challenges. First, there has been very little evaluation of primary prevention strategies. Most evaluations of efforts with regard to violence against women are focused on tertiary strategies which address such violence after it has already occurred: services for victims, legal responses to violence, treatments for perpetrators, and so on. Of the few rigorous evaluations in existence, many focus on legal interventions in response to intimate partner violence (World Health Organization 2002).

Second, existing evidence regarding the effectiveness of any kind of intervention is sparse (Flood 2005-2006). For example, in a recent review of interventions for the primary prevention of partner violence, the authors could find only 11 programs which had been rigorously evaluated (with a pre- and post-test design or a comparison group), and all of these addressed adolescent dating violence (Whitaker et al. 2006). Many efforts have not had any evaluation, and existing evaluations often are poorly designed, limited to participants’ satisfaction, or only assess proxy variables associated with violence against women rather than this violence itself (Tolan 2006).

Nevertheless, there are certainly a wide range of strategies of primary prevention which are promising or worthy of consideration, and there is some evidence with which to assess their effectiveness. Some strategies and interventions clearly are effective: they show evidence of implementation, evidence of effectiveness, and a theoretical rationale. Others are promising: they show evidence of implementation and a theoretical rationale. Other strategies are potentially promising: they have not been tried or evaluated, but they do have a theoretical rationale.

Violence prevention: Multiple levels of intervention

Contemporary scholarly accounts of men’s violence against women take as given that this violence is “a multifaceted phenomenon grounded in an interplay among personal, situational, and sociocultural factors” (Heise 1998). Given that violence against women is the outcome of a complex interplay of individual, relationship, community, institutional, and societal factors, violence prevention too must work at these multiple levels (World Health Organization 2002).

In the following discussion, I organise violence prevention strategies among men in terms of six levels of intervention. This draws on the ‘spectrum of prevention’ identified by Davis et al. (2006). I give examples where possible of strategies working with men to end harmful traditional and cultural practices. But because these are so rare, I also give other examples concerned with domestic violence, sexual assault, and violence against women in general.

Level 1: Strengthening Individual Knowledge and Skills

The smallest and most localised form of prevention is transferring information and skills to individuals and increasing their capacity to prevent or avoid violence against women. For example, teachers, carers, and physicians may help boys and young men to increase their safety and their equitable attitudes, healthcare practitioners may engage patients and parents to promote healthy relationships, and other community leaders and public figures may speak to boys and men to encourage non-violence (Davis et al. 2006).

Among children and youth, there are a range of promising strategies of violence prevention focused on individual knowledge and skills, and these apply to males and females alike. Among young children, these include the provision of quality child care, home visiting programs, intensive clinical work with battered mothers and their young children, and encouraging parental involvement in children’s early education and school. Among adolescents and young adults, relevant measures include mentoring programs, premarital relationship education, and welfare-to-work strategies. Given that parental and adult supervision is protective against girls’ exposure to intimate partner violence, interventions among parents and other adults in adolescents’ social networks are important strategies. And, given that emotionally unsupportive and harsh parenting is a risk factor for domestic violence, interventions to encourage better parenting practices also are valuable (Vezina and Herbert 2007).

It is particularly important that we address programs and services to boys who have witnessed or experienced violence in families. Boys who have witnessed or experienced violence are more likely to grow up adhering to violence-supportive attitudes and perpetrating violence themselves, reflecting the intergenerational transmission of violence (Flood and Pease 2006). According to a recent review, eight out of ten relevant studies find associations between a history of child physical abuse and men’s current physical aggression to an intimate partner (Schumacher 2001).

Prevention efforts among youth can address the associations between domestic violence and poverty, low work attachment, and low educational attainment, and other social factors. Given that a range of internalising and externalising problems are associated with domestic violence, and many are more visible than domestic violence, they should be targeted in interventions among children and youth. Among boys, these include high risk behaviours such as illegal drug use and delinquent behaviour (Vezina and Herbert 2007).

Among older male populations, other direct participation efforts include responsible fatherhood programs and those addressing prisoners’ reentry into communities (Rosewater 2003). Premarital relationship education and couples counseling programs try to increase the skills and orientations which are protective against intimate partner violence, for example by teaching communication and conflict resolution skills. Few evaluations of such programs have been conducted, but there is some evidence that they reduce the likelihood of partner violence (Hamby 1998). Focusing on interventions at this individual level, there is little evidence with which to evaluate the effectiveness of such strategies in preventing violence against women.

Level 2: Promoting Community Education

I define ‘community education’ broadly here, focusing on four streams of education: face-to-face educational groups and programs, communication and social marketing, local educational strategies such as ‘social norms’ and ‘bystander’ approaches, and other media strategies such as media literacy and media regulation.

Face-to-face educational groups and programs

Educational strategies among young people embody the recognition that children and adolescents are key population groups for violence prevention (Rosewater 2003). Violence-supportive attitudes are already well established in adolescence. Younger males are particularly likely to endorse violence against women, and some gender norms among adolescents ‘normalise’ sexual coercion (Flood and Pease 2006). Boys and young men therefore are a particularly important group for intervention.

The most extensive body of evidence in the evaluation of primary prevention efforts concerns educational programs among children, youth, and young adults. From a series of US evaluations of violence prevention education, delivered in schools and universities in particular, it is clear such interventions can have positive effects on males’ attitudes towards and participation in violence against women (Flood 2005-2006; Whitaker et al. 2006). Male (and female) secondary school and university students who have attended rape education sessions show less adherence to rape myths, express less rape-supportive attitudes, and/or report greater victim empathy than those in control groups. Existing evaluations show that not all educational interventions are effective, changes in attitudes often ‘rebound’ to pre-intervention levels one or two months after the intervention, and some even become worse. However, education programs which are intensive, lengthy, and use a variety of pedagogical approaches have been shown to produce positive and lasting change in attitudes and behaviours (Flood 2005-2006). For example, evaluations of the Safe Dates program among American adolescents found that four years after the program, adolescents who had received the program continued to report less physical and sexual dating violence perpetration (and victimisation) than those who had not (Foshee et al. 2004). Far less evidence is available concerning the effectiveness of violence prevention education among other adult male populations such as professional athletes.

Some contemporary education programs for boys include materials addressing boys’ attitudes to female genital mutilation. In Egypt, the Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA) runs the New Visions program. The program addresses boys aged 12 to 20, teaches life skills and seeks to increase their gender sensitivity, and thus far over 15,000 boys have completed the course. A 2004 evaluation found that participants had adopted more gender-equitable attitudes, including less tolerance for female genital mutilation and gender-based violence (CEDPA 2005). The program has also been adopted for use in India (CEDPA 2002).

Other countries and organisations also have developed education programs for boys addressing gender issues. One of the most well documented programs has been developed by Program H, a consortium of NGOs based in Brazil and Mexico. In sites in which young men were exposed to weekly educational workshops (and a social marketing campaign), they showed improved attitudes towards violence against women and other issues (Schueller et al. 2005). In South Africa, young and older men who participated in workshops run by the Men As Partners project were less likely than non-participants to believe that it is acceptable to beat their wives or rape sex workers (White et al. 2003: 22). In Nigeria, Conscientizing Male Adolescents is a long-term program focusing on sexism and the development of critical thinking skills (Population Council 2003). Discussion groups and forums also are being used among adult men to prompt questioning and transformation of dominant constructions of masculinity, such as in Zimbabwe (Mtutu 2005), India (Karlsson and Karkara 2004), and Nicaragua (Esplen 2006: 6).

There are other promising strategies of primary prevention among children and adolescents which take place outside school settings, although there is less evidence of their effectiveness. As Rosewater (2003) notes in the US context, the youth who are most vulnerable to domestic violence (whether as victims, perpetrators, or witnesses) are those who are out of school and unemployed, live in poverty, have incarcerated parents, are receiving welfare, are leaving juvenile detention or foster care, or are young parents. Prevention programs not only should address adolescents in schools, but those who have dropped out of school, and should address adolescents through other means and contexts associated with increased risks of victimisation (Vezina and Herbert 2007). Whitaker et al. (2006) emphasise the need for culturally specific interventions, programs targeted to specific at-risk populations and environments, and using settings such as families, community and faith-based organisations, and media.

Such strategies have been used to good effect in contexts affected by war, militarism, and civil conflict. In Namibia for example, participatory research, community plays, resource centres, and family visitors’ programmes have produced shifts in attitudes and behaviour, including a decline in boys’ ritualised sexual violence against girls in hostels (Kandirikirira 2002).

Including peer education and mentoring

Interventions among boys and young men in general should be complemented by other strategies aimed at addressing particularly intensive forms of support for violence in the peer cultures and group norms of some boys and young men, such as peer education and mentoring. Intervention with boys and young men identified as at risk of violence perpetration or already using violence therefore may be valuable in changing the potentially life-long violent trajectories of those males who are already using violence (Flood and Pease 2006).

Peer-based strategies are of particular value. In violence prevention education, programs for men are more likely to be effective if they use peers in leadership roles (Flood 2006-2006). Increasing interpersonal sanctions, in which friends and relatives strongly condemn domestic violence, has a significant effect on violence-supportive attitudes (Tsoudis 2000). Non-violent men can play a powerful role as peer educators. For example, in an action-research project in low-income settings in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, young men who questioned prevailing violence-supportive views were trained as peer educators to foster gender-equitable relations in their communities (Barker 2001).

Communication and social marketing

Communication and social marketing campaigns are one of the more common means of primary prevention of violence against women. There is evidence that social marketing campaigns can produce positive change in the attitudes and behaviours associated with men’s perpetration of violence against women (Donovan and Vlais 2005). Soul City, a multimedia project in South Africa, is one of the most thorough and well-evaluated examples of this strategy. It combined prime-time radio and television dramas with other educational activities, and the evaluation “found increased knowledge and awareness of domestic violence, changed attitudes and norms, and greater willingness on the part of the project’s audience to take appropriate action” (World Health Organization 2002). Given the evidence that some messages, appeals, and campaign elements will be more effective than others, social marketing efforts should draw on available guides to effective communication (Campbell and Manganello 2006; Wray 2006).

Men’s groups and networks have adopted a wide range of creative communication strategies, including the use of film in India to encourage men to reflect on their relations with women (Roy 2001), ‘guerilla theatre’ in South African bars to spark discussion, the distribution of pamphlets to men in community markets in Cambodia (Kaufman 2003), and a ‘Walk Across America’ to raise community awareness about violence against women. In Brazil, Program H developed postcards, banners, and comics which drew on mass media and youth culture to promote respectful identities and gender-equitable lifestyles among young men and women. Program H is extending these campaigns in India and elsewhere. In the USA, Men Can Stop Rape have developed an innovative poster campaign centred on the theme “My strength is not for hurting”, encouraging men to practise consent and respect in their sexual relations. In Kenya, Men for Gender Equality Now makes use of radio, television, newspaper, and a ‘traveling conference’ in which they use song, theatrical performance, visual arts, and seminars at community gathering places such as markets, schools, and churches (Miruka 2007). Some social marketing campaigns use well-known male celebrities, actors, or athletes to help address boys and men, whether in trying to prevent acid attacks on girls and women in Bangladesh (Karlsson and Karkara 2004) or to encourage norms of consent and non-violence among young men in Australia and the US (Flood 2002-2003).

Local educational strategies: ‘social norms’ and ‘bystander intervention’ campaigns

Two further approaches are promising ones for the primary prevention of violence against women, with both a theoretical rationale and evidence of implementation. More local campaigns have been developed to shift community norms in particular contexts regarding violence against women. Using the ‘social norms’ approach, US campaigns on university campuses have highlighted the gap between men’s perceptions of other men’s agreement with violence-supportive and sexist norms and the actual extent of this agreement. By gathering and publicising data on men’s attitudes and behaviour, they seek to undermine men’s conformity to sexist peer norms and increase their willingness to intervene in violent behaviour (Flood 2005-2006). Given the evidence that perceived group norms do influence men’s willingness to engage in sexually aggressive behaviour (Bohner et al. 2006), such strategies are particularly valuable. Social norms campaigns could be adopted in universities, workplaces, and other public institutions.

Using a ‘bystander intervention’ approach, other campaigns have sought to place “a sense of responsibility and empowerment for ending sexual violence on the shoulders of all community members”. They teach men (and women) skills in de-escalating risky situations and being effective allies for survivors and foster a sense of community responsibility for violence prevention (Banyard 2005).

Other media strategies

At least three kinds of intervention are relevant in relation to the media’s influence on community attitudes towards violence against women: better news reporting, media literacy, and regulation.

Better news reporting

In a ‘media advocacy’ approach, journalists and news media have been encouraged to portray violence against women in appropriate ways, for example as social problems requiring public intervention (Ghez 2001; Wray 2006). Such interventions can make a significant difference to news coverage. For example, the Rhode Island Coalition against Domestic Violence (USA) worked with journalists to develop a best practices handbook on news coverage of intimate homicides. Such incidents had often been portrayed as unpredictable private tragedies, but post-intervention they were more likely to be framed as social problems requiring public intervention (Ryan et al. 2006).

Media literacy

We should be encouraging media literacy, especially among children and youth but also among adults. Teaching critical viewing and thinking skills improves viewers’ ability to ignore or resist anti-social messages and reduces the negative impact of portrayals of violence (Flood and Pease 2006). It is particularly important that we tackle boys’ consumption of sexist and violence-supportive media such as pornography (Flood 2007a).

Media regulation

Perhaps the most controversial form of intervention into media is the regulation of media content. In Australia, government regulations already have strong prohibitions on the portrayal of violence in film and television, and these include prohibitions on portrayals of sexual violence or coercion in adults-only pornographic materials. However, two aspects of media content whose regulation should be considered concern portrayals of violence in children’s television and forms of Internet pornography. In relation to the latter for example, children and adults alike in Australia are routinely exposed online, both accidentally and deliberately, to forms of Internet pornography which are outside Australian classification guidelines and which include sexually violent and misogynistic portrayals (Flood 2007a).

Level 3: Educating Providers (and other professionals)

Organisational and workforce strategies for the primary prevention of violence against women are scattered and underdeveloped. On the other hand, organisations and workforces are a common site for the development of improved responses to the occurrence of such violence. These include training police and legal staff in appropriate responses to violence against women, developing coordinated community responses, sensitising health care providers, and developing protocols for the proper management of abuse (World Health Organization 2002).

Such efforts do improve professional responses to the victims and perpetrators of intimate partner violence, increase women’s safety, and assist their processes of recovery. However, these strategies in organisations and workforces may also be complemented by more preventive approaches. We know for example that workplace training can improve attitudes towards sexual harassment, among employees in universities and in government workplaces (Antecol and Cobb-Clark 2003). Doctors, teachers, police, child care workers, and other professionals can play an important role in transmitting information, skills, and motivation to clients, community members, and colleagues, and they can be effective advocates for prevention policies (Davis et al. 2006).

Workplace strategies often involve working with men, given that police, law, and medical institutions typically are dominated by men. However, very little primary prevention work has been conducted with men in workplaces in gender-sensitive ways. At the same time, there are some inspiring and promising instances of such work. For example, the US Family Violence Prevention Fund encouraged coaches (and other adult men, including fathers, teachers, uncles, older brothers, and mentors) to teach boys that there is no place for violence in a relationship. Similarly, in a series of countries in south and central America, the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) is training soccer coaches to promote more gender-equitable masculinities among boys (Schueller et al. 2005). In Islamabad, an NGO called Rozan has run gender violence sensitization workshops with police on gender-based violence (Lang 2003), while Men for Gender Equality Now in Kenya plans to forge stronger relationships with police and military forces to improve violence prevention (Miruka 2007).

Another key form of violence prevention relevant to this area of action is increasing workforce and organisational capacity to prevent violence against women, by developing resources and technical assistance.

Level 4: Engaging, Strengthening, and Mobilising Communities

To prevent violence against women, we must change the social norms, gender roles, and power relations which feed into violence. There is a growing consensus that strategies of community engagement and community mobilisation are central to this project (Family Violence Prevention Fund 2004a). The bulk of primary prevention efforts thus far have addressed individuals and their intimate relationships, while community and societal strategies have been under-utilised (Michau 2005). We must build local communities’ capacity to respond effectively to violence and encourage their ownership of the issue. And we must address the social contexts in which violence against women occurs (Rosewater 2003). Given the evidence of implementation and a theoretical rationale for efforts involving community development and community mobilisation, such strategies are promising ones.

There is growing experience, and sophistication, regarding violence prevention strategies at the community level. The US-based Family Violence Prevention Fund provides a useful overview of five key strategies for effective community engagement. These are:

• 1. Raise awareness of the problem of violence against women and establish social norms that make violence unacceptable.
• 2. Develop networks of leaders within the community.
• 3. Connect community members to services and informal supports when they need help.
• 4. Make services and institutions accountable to community needs.
• 5. Change the social and community conditions that lead to violence. (Family Violence Prevention Fund 2004a)

Promising community education strategies include community and media education campaigns, workshops and curricula in schools, ‘community action teams’ designed to involve communities in building strategies for community safety, awards programs for responsible media coverage and effective community leadership in violence prevention, and holding religious and political leaders accountable for providing clear messages that violence against women is unacceptable (Davis et al. 2006). Other strategies include family policies and programs which support positive parenting and encourage shared power and decision-making. For example, some campaigns focus on expectant and new fathers, addressing them through prenatal education and obstetrics clinics (Gault 2006). In terms of changing the social and community conditions that lead to violence, one key strategy is to link violence to other issues which influence community well-being, such as poverty, affordable housing, access to health care, and economic development.

Involve male community leaders

We must also involve male community leaders in such efforts. For example, while religious beliefs historically have been used to justify violence against women and church clergy at times have been complicit in this violence (Flood and Pease 2006), religious institutions and leaders also have a potentially powerful role to play in encouraging an ethic of non-violence. Christian churches in recent years have begun an intense examination of clergy’s roles in perpetrating and perpetuating child sexual abuse, and a similar, albeit smaller, examination is under way in relation to domestic violence. The spiritual and theological understandings of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and other world religions each contain emphases and values which could serve to undermine community tolerance for violence against women. Spiritual and religious leaders should be encouraged to challenge violence against women and gender inequality, whether as practised among their adherents or as defended in theological teachings, through public statements, sermons, teachings, and religious materials.

Some programs in Egypt, Gambia, Senegal, Somalia, and Sudan working to end female genital mutilation (FGM) and other harmful traditional practices have consciously involved men: raising men’s awareness of FGM, undermining their support for FGM, lessening their resistance to anti-FGM campaigns, and enlisting their public support to help change community norms. Some organisations train male community leaders and educate adolescent males (Khafagy 2001). Others mobilise male community and religious leaders to issue religious declarations opposing FGM, take public stances, and lead community efforts (Dini 2007; Kaufman 2003). In Senegal, the NGO Tostan emphasises that successful efforts to abandon female genital cutting and child marriage must address all actors within the systems which perpetuate these practices. They work with women, and religious leaders, excluded ethnic groups, traditional leaders and healers, many of whom are men (pers. comm., G. Gillespie). Recruitment and education of supportive male leaders is an important strategy in efforts by Women for Women International to build gender equality in Nigeria, Iraq, and the DRC (Morris 2007).

Foster coalitions and networks

We must also foster coalitions and networks to increase the ‘critical mass’ behind particular prevention efforts, improve collaboration on interventions, and reduce unnecessary competition among organisations. We need coalitions between researchers and community providers, among art and music organisations, between grassroots organisations and sectors of government, and with businesses and workplaces (Davis et al. 2006; Expert Group 2003: 33).

Mobilise communities through events, networks, and campaigns

Community development strategies are complemented by strategies of community mobilisation. We must not only educate men and women but also organise them for collective action (Greig and Peacock 2005). While community education strategies are vital, we must also move beyond them to take up more activist involvements (Peacock et al. 2006). These are needed to change the social norms and power relations which underpin men’s violence against women. In addition, actively involving men in efforts to end violence against women enhances the effectiveness of this work and men’s sense of a personal stake in this project (Kaufman 2001).

We must create opportunities for individuals to mobilise their communities through events, networks, and campaigns. Examples of key strategies here include community workshops and events (in which both the preparation process and the product are tools of education and mobilisation), work with influential groups and community ‘gatekeepers’, cultural tools of art and drama such as murals, competitions, and street theatre, and fostering grassroots men’s and women’s groups and networks committed to advocacy for non-violence and gender equality (Greig and Peacock 2005). It is particularly important that we mobilise men through such work, because of many men’s greater endorsement of violence-supportive attitudes, men’s roles as community leaders and gatekeepers, and men’s relative absence from efforts to end violence against women.

Around the world, a variety of grassroots men’s groups and networks work to engage men in personal and collective efforts at violence prevention (Flood 2005a). The most widespread example of an anti-violence campaign organised by men is the White Ribbon Campaign. The White Ribbon Campaign is the largest collective effort in the world among men working to end men’s violence against women. It began in 1991 on the second anniversary of one man’s massacre of 14 women in Montreal, Canada, and it has now spread to the U.S.A., Europe, Africa, Latin America, Asia and Australia. Men are encouraged to show their opposition to men’s violence against women by purchasing and wearing a white ribbon. In pinning on the ribbon, men pledge themselves never to commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women. In some countries, the White Ribbon Campaign also involves year-round educational strategies, including advertising campaigns, concerts, fathers’ walks, and fund-raising for women’s organisations.

Another well developed example is EngenderHealth’s Men As Partners program, which uses community education, grassroots organising, and advocacy for effective policy implementation. Other groups and networks can be found across the USA (Flood 2005a) and in countries such as India, Cambodia (Lang 2003), Namibia (Odendaalm 2001), and Kenya (Miruka 2007). In South Africa, Hope Worldwide (part of the Men As Partners network) builds on community education workshops by encouraging men to form ‘community action teams’ to take local steps to prevent violence against women (Tshabalala 2005). Similarly, members of Men for Gender Equality Now in Kenya intervene in actual episodes of violence using ‘rapid response committees’ (Miruka 2007).

In many instances such men’s groups and networks are initiated by men themselves, but in others, women’s groups and organisations have nurtured and trained male anti-violence advocates. In Fiji for example, the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre began training male advocates from the police force, religious groups, education, welfare, and health fields. In Pakistan, the NGO Rozan recruited and trained male volunteers to run White Ribbon Campaign activities in their communities (Lang 2003). In the Philippines, the Kauswagan Community Social Centre conducted the Southeast Asian Regional Workshop on Men’s Role in Violence Against Women in 2001 (Ragas 2001). Capacity-building is critical to the effectiveness of men’s anti-violence work, including training for advocates (Miruka 2007) and resource development.

Studies of men’s anti-violence and gender equity groups find that the male participants undergo positive transformations in their attitudes and behaviours, although some investments in traditional masculinities remain (Coulter 2003; DeKeseredy et al. 2000; Hong 2000; Peacock 2006). Similarly, for both men and women conducting anti-violence peer education on university campuses, this involvement acts as a form of consciousness-raising in which they are both politicised and radicalised (Gold and Villari 2000).

Foster alternative, non-violent norms and practices

One of the key goals of community engagement is to foster alternative norms and practices centred on non-violence, gender equality, and social justice. Among men, this should include positive constructions of identity which are alternatives to socially recognised forms of manhood associated with violence and gender inequality, and alternative rites of passage (Barker and Ricardo 2005). This may be particularly important in eliminating harmful traditional practices. In Gambia for example, the Foundation for Research on Women’s Health, Productivity and the Environment (BAFROW) mobilised both men and women to promote alternative coming-of-age ceremonies for girls (Kaufman 2003).

Level 5: Changing Organizational Practices

Changing the practices of organisations and institutions can have a significant impact on community norms. For example, media outlets can restrict violence-supportive representations, healthcare institutions can adopt workplace policies modeling egalitarian relationships, and churches may encourage their members to relate in non-abusive ways (Davis et al. 2006). Universities, technical and further education (TAFE) institutions, and other professional bodies involved in training social workers, judges, police, priests, and other professions should integrate materials on violence against women in their curricula. And in medicine and health systems, we need interventions to train and educate health personnel (Taft 2004), as well as other strategies such as routine screening and other case-finding approaches (Laing 2001).

And organisational or institutional cultures

Violence-supportive attitudes are encouraged and institutionalised in the peer relations and cultures of particular organisations and contexts, especially in male-dominated and homosocially-focused male university colleges, sporting clubs, workplaces, and military institutions (Flood and Pease 2006). While there is great variation in the extent to which such contexts are characterised by violence-supportive social norms, it is also clear that some are particularly hostile to and dangerous for women. Intensive interventions in such contexts is necessary to address their violence-supportive local cultures.

There are some powerful examples of sporting institutions taking action to address tolerance for or the perpetration of violence against women among professional male athletes. In Australia, the professional sporting codes of National Rugby League (NRL) and the Australian Football League (AFL) are developing education programs for their players, codes of conduct, and other measures in response to a series of alleged sexual assaults by players in 2004 (AFL 2005). Education programs should be adopted at both community and professional levels of sport, particularly in the male-dominated, team-based, contact sports which appear to have the highest potential for violence-supportive norms and social relations.

There are also powerful examples of agencies addressing their own gender relations. For example, Lang and Smith (2004) describe the experience of a development agency working to model gender-equality itself, by addressing its own policies, staff and organisational culture. Similar and substantial initiatives in military institutions, university colleges, and other workplaces also would be desirable.

Level 6: Influencing Policies and Legislation

Legal and policy reforms in relation to violence against women have been largely concerned with tertiary responses to intimate partner violence. Yet law and policy also are crucial tools of primary prevention, at national, state, and local levels. At the broadest levels, national and state-based plans of action for eliminating violence against women are necessary elements in any systematic prevention effort. As a recent review of Australian prevention efforts emphasised, we require a whole of government approach, with a national funding base, involving integrated prevention plans at national and state levels (Office of the Status of Women 2004).

Law and policy are critical tools too in establishing and disseminating particular strategies of primary prevention. For example, they are necessary in establishing and spreading violence prevention curricula for schools and universities (including sexuality education addressing sexual violence prevention), influencing the availability and consumption of alcohol, determining the content of advertising, pornography, and other media, and restricting gun use. Again, government policy and programming should address the role of men and boys in eliminating violence against women (Expert Group 2003: 32).

The criminal justice system

The criminal justice system only responds to a very small proportion of domestic violence and sexual assault matters, given both low rates of reporting and attrition through the legal process (Stubbs 2001). At the same time, the criminal justice system does have an important symbolic role in shaping community perceptions of violence against women, and strong legal sanctions do encourage community intolerance for this violence (Flood and Pease 2006). Therefore, strengthening legal responses to violence against women will have positive effects not only for the victims and survivors of this violence but for community attitudes in general.

Again, men can play an important role here. For example, in Pakistan, some male lawyers and judges have worked to encourage appropriate convictions for perpetrators of violence and to advocate for the rights of women vulnerable to honour killing (Lang 2003).

Research monitoring and evaluation

Finally, ongoing research into the determinants of violence against women is needed to extend our understanding of the risk factors for, dynamics of, and populations most at risk of violence. In addition, our efforts at primary prevention themselves must be subjected to rigorous scrutiny. Outcome-based evaluations of existing prevention programs, and investment in evidence-based prevention programs, are necessary in furthering our prevention efforts (Office of the Status of Women 2004). We should work to increase the effectiveness of violence program interventions by incorporating evaluation components in programs, increasing practitioners’ understanding of and ability to implement program evaluation, engaging researchers in program evaluation, and identifying and disseminating successful and promising activities (Oregon Department of Human Services 2006).

Challenges in working with men

I will conclude by discussing some of the key challenges in working with men and some of the key strategies which are effective in engaging, educating, and mobilising men. I draw here on the documentation of a growing body of experience and expertise in working with men.

Providing for men

First, there is the challenge of whether to address men at all. Among many women’s groups and organisations there is understandable caution about working with men. Involving men in gender policy and programming can threaten funding and resources for programs and services directed at women, and it can mean the dilution of the feminist content and orientation of services. At the same time, there is a clear feminist rationale for working with men: that we will need to change men – men’s attitudes, behaviours, identities, and relations – if we are to make progress towards gender equality.

I have written elsewhere (Flood 2007b) of the principles which should guide any work with men. Above all, this work must be pro-feminist. It must be guided by feminist content and framed with a feminist political agenda. It must be done in partnership with, and even be accountable to, women and women’s groups. And it must involve the protection of ‘women’s space’, women-only, and women-focused programs. Second, this work must be committed to enhancing boys’ and men’s lives. Third, work with men must acknowledge both commonalities and diversities, and the complex ways in which manhood and gender are structured by race, class, sexuality, age and other forms of social difference.

Reaching men

The second challenge is how to reach men. There are two clusters of strategies here: go to men, and bring them to you. Successful strategies for going to men include peer education, targeting of the workplaces, sporting and entertainment events at which men dominate, and community outreach strategies to reach young men in clubs, video arcades, and other places where young and adult men congregate (United Nations Population Fund 2000). The other side of reaching boys and men is bringing them to you. For example, there have been efforts to make sexual and reproductive health services more attractive to men or ‘male-friendly’, and such efforts can be transferred to other kinds of community services.

Appealing to men

Third, how do we appeal to men? How do we engage their interest and commitment? What kind of message should we offer to boys and men? There is widespread acknowledgement that what works best is to begin with the positive – to begin with what is working, with the fact that most men treat women and girls with respect, that most men do not use violence, and so on. Approaching men with a ‘deficit’ perspective, focused on the negative, is likely to prompt defensiveness (Lang 2002; Ruxton 2004). However, beginning with the positive does not mean condoning men’s endorsement of sexist or oppressive understandings and practices. Any work with men must retain a fundamental, feminist-informed concern with gender equality and a critique of those practices, understandings, and relations which sustain inequality.

Second, it is useful to ground the language and content in men’s own experience and concerns. We must ensure that our interventions are culturally appropriate – where this is understood as embodying not just a sensitivity to cultural diversities, but a sensitivity to gender cultures and the diverse constructions of masculinity and sexuality which are dominant in particular social contexts and communities (Flood 2005-2006). Effective approaches address boys’ and men’s own needs, both reflecting on the gendered specificities of male socialisation and engaging males in redressing gender inequalities (Barker and Ricardo 2005). Third, emphasise the shared benefits for men and women and, in particular, the ways in which men will gain from gender equality. Most if not all contemporary societies are characterised by men’s institutional privilege (Messner 1997), such that men in general receive a ‘patriarchal dividend’ from gendered structures of inequality (Connell 1995). However, men can be and are motivated by interests other than those associated with gender privilege (Flood 2005a). There are four important resources in men’s lives for the construction of egalitarian and non-violent identities and relations. There is personal well-being: men pay heavy costs for conformity with dominant definitions of masculinity (Messner 1997). There are men’s relational interests: men’s care and love for the women and girls in their lives. There are men’s collective and community interests. Gender reform benefits the wellbeing of the communities in which men live. For example, men may recognise that they and their communities benefit from flexibility in divisions of labour which maximise labour resources or from improvements in women’s health and wellbeing. Finally, there is principle. Men may support gender equality because of their ethical, political, or spiritual commitments – their support for ideals of equality or liberation, their faith-based belief in ideals of compassion and justice, and so on.

In appealing to men, we must also work to minimise their reactions of defensiveness and hostility. In educational work on violence against women, many men already feel defensive and blamed about the issue, and defensive reactions are common among men attending anti-violence workshops. Measures that can lessen men’s defensiveness include approaching males as partners in solving the problem rather than as perpetrators of the problem, addressing men as bystanders to other men’s sexism or violence, creating safe and non-judgmental environments for open discussion and dialogue, using male facilitators, and acknowledging men’s own victimisation (Flood 2005-2006).

Educating and changing men

What works in educating men? A growing body of expertise, particularly from the experience of efforts to improve men’s understandings and awareness of violence against women, suggests that the following strategies are useful.

• • Use men to engage men: male facilitators and educators, and women and men working together.

Male educators tend to be perceived as more credible and more persuasive by male participants (Flood 2005-2006). They can act as role models for other men, and having men work with men embodies the recognition that men must take responsibility for helping to end gender inequality. At the same time, having mixed-sex educators is a valuable demonstration to participants of egalitarian working relationships across gender.

• • Use all-male groups and workshops.
• • Create safe spaces for men to talk and learn.
• • Offer programs which are comprehensive, intensive, relevant to the audience, and based on positive messages, and which address cognitive, affective or emotional, and behavioural domains.
• • Make your interventions culturally appropriate – including sensitivity to gender cultures.
• • Address culturally specific supports for gender inequality. And draw on local resources and texts in promoting gender equality.

For example, Christian men may defend gender inequality by claiming that male dominance is mandated by God and legitimated in the Bible. This can be undermined by finding other Christian accounts which reject such privilege, including Biblical references which state that God created man and woman equally, that a Christian marriage should be a partnership, and so on. Other aspects of this work include placing ‘tradition’ in its social and historical context, showing that ‘tradition’ has varied over time and is shaped by many forces and factors, and inviting assessment of the positive and negative aspects of tradition (Greig and Peacock 2005). A second strategy is to look for and build on local resources, texts, and norms in promoting gender equality.

• • Match your intervention to men’s stage of change.

Interventions should be matched to men’s level of awareness about and willingness to take responsibility for problems of violence and gender inequality. First, education programs can take men through different developmental stages over the course of the program. Second, different educational approaches can be used with men who are at different stages of awareness and commitment.

• • Use innovative and engaging techniques to foster men’s support for and commitment to gender equality.

These might include exercises in gender reversal or ‘walking in women’s shoes’, listening directly to women’s experiences, local stories and examples, personalising women’s suffering by drawing on men’s relationships with women in their lives (mothers, sisters, aunts, daughters, and so on), making comparisons with other forms of inequality or unjust power, drawing on culturally appropriate texts and stories in critiquing gender inequality such as religious texts, local myths and fables, and, on the other hand, using the language of human rights, fairness, justice, and so on.

• • Be prepared for, and respond to, resistance.

We must be prepared to respond to men’s reactions of defensiveness and hostility when they do occur, and more generally to forms of resistance – delaying tactics, lip-service, tokenism, and so on (Ruxton 2004; Morris 2007). While some men act in support of gender equality in their personal or public lives, other men actively resist gender equality. Resistance represents the defence of privilege, but also can express men’s fears and discomfort regarding change and uncertainty (Greig and Peacock 2005). It is useful to acknowledge and work with men’s fears about gender equality and acknowledge men’s own perceived victimisation.

• • Focus on the practical action men can take.

It is essential that our work with men explore the concrete actions that men can take to advance gender equality. Some of the obvious forms of action men may take up include: Making a commitment to specific changes in their families and personal relations; Telling other men and boys in their communities about their experiences with the program (and this is also a very valuable method of recruitment); Working as peer educators, whether on an informal basis or more substantially; Presenting the program to other organisations in their communities; Mentoring a young man; Conducting outreach for future workshops and other activities; Developing theatre pieces to be performed in the community; and effecting change within their faith-based organisations (Greig and Peacock 2005).

• • Assess the impact of your work.

Systematic evaluation should always be part of our efforts.

Mobilising men

These educational strategies must be part of a broader effort aimed at mobilising men and communities and work towards broader forms of social and political change, as I argued in relation to the fourth level of intervention above.

Conclusion

Preventing men’s violence against women will require sustained and systematic efforts at the levels of families and relationships, communities, institutions, and societies. Men must be engaged in this work: as participants in education programs, as community leaders, as professionals and providers, and as advocates and activists working in alliance with women. We will only make progress in preventing violence against women if we can change the attitudes, identities, and relations among some men which sustain violence. To stop the physical and sexual assault of women and girls, we must build on the fact that most men do not use violence and that most men, if only privately, believe that such violence is unthinkable. We must erode the cultural and collective supports for violence found among many men and boys and replace them with norms of consent, sexual respect and gender equality. While some men are part of the problem, all men are part of the solution.

Top of Page

 

 

---

 

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN MAY GO UNPUNISHED

 

Posted: June 11, 2007
by: David Melmer / Indian Country Today

LOWER BRULE, S.D. - On the Standing Rock Reservation, it is hoped that there will not be more than one call at a time to help victims of violence or crime.

A woman who was beaten called for a police officer, but there was only one on duty at the time. She was told an officer would be sent when available. After a few hours of waiting, the woman no longer cared to report the crime, said Georgia Little Shield, director of the Pretty Bird Woman House shelter on Standing Rock.

''I send advocates out on calls to help; it is not safe, but if we don't help, who will?'' Little Shield asked.

The problem is too few police officers, too large of an area and too little funding.

''Sixty-one women were sexually assaulted in one week on Standing Rock. When women go the city jail for help, that is desperate,'' Little Shield said.

Some women go to the city jail in McLaughlin, on Standing Rock, for protection. The jail is not affiliated with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

''We have become a lawless nation: people take the law into their own hands,'' she said.

A field hearing of the House Resources Committee was held June 1 to collect information from law enforcement, tribal leaders and from women's organizations. The final panel of the day was directed toward violence against women, the result of an Amnesty International report on the subject that recently became public.

''We have been saying this for some time, but when Amnesty International publicized the report, people started to listen,'' said Cecelia Fire Thunder, former president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and now a director at Cangleska, a battered women's shelter and program.

Police officers are trained in Albuquerque, N.M., but Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin suggested training officers at a new facility in Pierre.

Fire Thunder suggested a training facility in Bismarck, N.D., but the BIA insists on training in Albuquerque.

''Pay the officers well; give them fringe benefits. The training is crucial but is not now meeting the needs of the people,'' she said.

Fire Thunder suggested an important change for the major crimes act to include rape to involve the FBI so the perpetrator doesn't walk.

She also called for separate hearings by the Resources Committee on sexual assault.

''We need to find new dollars, we need data. I ask you, direct the BIA to allow us to get into the BIA records for the data,'' Fire Thunder said.

A further problem is lack of training for officers to deal with domestic violence.

The South Dakota Domestic Violence Coalition conducts training for officers, but no one shows up, Little Shield said. ''The departments say they can't spare the officers to attend the trainings.''

On the Cheyenne River Reservation, the officers were mandated to attend, but that can't be the case with BIA officers.

On the Pine Ridge Reservation, which has the strictest and first domestic violence code, all officers go through training.

To help, AI has called for full funding of the Native American Violence Act and that the IHS establish protocols that deal with ways victims are treated.

IHS doctors, who have short terms with a service unit, do not perform rape testing because they don't want to return to attend a possible court hearing, advocates claim.

Observers of the hearing might think that people attended to bash the BIA and federal government.

''We know the problem; we didn't come to bash the BIA,'' said Robert Cournoyer, chairman of the Yankton Sioux Tribal Business Council.

''It comes down to funding. There is never enough money to succeed, just enough to fail. ... Indian country is severely underfunded for health, education and law enforcement. We can pull ourselves up, but we need help and we all need to work together to solve the problems,'' Cournoyer said.

Top of Page

 

 

---

 

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

 

“Those who are fighting for their own liberation and that of their societies are embarked on a long-term struggle. It is not a race for the sprinter but for the long-distance runner. Let women equip themselves to win this race.”

Awa Thiam

March 8th, International Women’s Day (IWD), is a time to assess our progress in this race. It is a day for women and men to pause in appreciation of our common global struggle, recognize our achievements, and revitalize our energy for the next lap.

It was just about a hundred years ago that groups of imaginative women labor organizers and peace activists came together in Europe, the United States (U.S.) and Australia to promote IWD. The idea took off in 1975 when the United Nations (UN) formally recognized it, and before long it was officially sanctioned by heads of state and established international institutions. This article celebrates IWD by recalling important events in the development of the international women’s movement, with special emphasis on campaigns to stop sexual violence and abuse in intimate relationships and families.

BREAKING THE SILENCE

The first giant step in the global movement for change was to break the silence. Before the 1970’s, just about anywhere in the world, rape was a word women whispered, but rarely spoke aloud. Domestic violence, honor killing, eve teasing and date rape were not in our vocabulary. In England, the U.S., and Australia 1975 was a watershed year in recognizing rape and intimate partner violence as crimes. Publications about violence to women heightened awareness, which evolved into the establishment of crisis lines and shelters. Yet much of the world remained silent about abuse of women.

The 1975 Mexico City UN conference on women fueled the global movement to end discrimination against women. For the first time spousal violence and rape were formally recognized as crimes. Conference participants were bursting with excitement about our widening horizons through exhilarating, inspiring -- and sometimes troubling -- connections with women from all over the globe. Our differences, though often stimulating, also exacerbated tensions. Many Western women had never before heard of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), “bride burning,” or “honor killings,” and believed such practices signified the backwardness of cultures in the South and East. Participants from poor countries with histories of economic and cultural imperialism resented Western women’s ignorance of our countries’ roles in subjugating other people.

Women in Manhattan, Samarra, Darfur, rural Kerala and Santiago experience sexual abuse and intimate partner violence in markedly similar ways. At the same time, each culture adds its own specific forms of abuse -- at the hands of family members, institutions and governments. Cultures share the common notions that -- whatever the form of abuse -- the woman has asked for it, deserves it, has exaggerated or simply fabricated it. Abuse of women adapts itself to individual cultural norms, but is always a method of controlling women.

At the 1976 grassroots International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women in Belgium, more women broke their silence in testimony about the crimes they had endured. They came from Egypt, the Antilles, the Philippines, Taiwan, Korea, Greece, Mozambique, Iran, India, Brazil, and many from Europe. They spoke of forced motherhood, compulsory non-motherhood, and persecution of non-virgins and unmarried mothers. They told stories of medical professionals perpetrating crimes, of persecution of lesbians, violence within families, economic discrimination, and many forms of violence against women including rape, battering, forced incarceration in mental hospitals, genital mutilation, and much more. An Indian woman stated that she had waited for a very long time to speak of the oppression of women in her country, where women, she said, “suffer from a triple sexual exploitation. They are exploited by the men in their families… discriminated against by the State, and… sexually victimized by the international system of male complicity and…by a system of male domination.” Over the next decade and more, her sentiments would echo throughout the world.

FORWARD MOVEMENT AND RESISTANCE

Inspired by what they had learned at the conferences, women from many parts of the world returned home ready to take action. But their African, Middle Eastern, Asian, and Latin American families and colleagues often dismissed the new ideas. They insisted the women were dupes of “man-hating Western feminists.” They accused Western women of trying to destroy others’ traditions, cultures, and religious practices. They refused to admit that some customary practices violate women’s human rights. They would not recognize that over time all cultures change. Nor would they accept the idea that women as well as men deserve a powerful voice in guiding that process.

Each phase toward achieving our goals seemed long and discouraging, but each has contributed to laying the track for our long-distance race to freedom and equality. It took several years for Western women to realize the commonalities among methods of oppressing women in each part of the world. Honor killings, genital mutilation, dowry murders, and trafficking in Eastern and Southern nations are different from date rape, marital rape, sexual harassment, and domestic violence in the West. But they all exemplify an underlying campaign to deprive women of power. Women in each country began to see their cultural traditions in a new light and, slowly, some men began to admit that they place women under the control of men. Recognizing the injustice, some began to help women confront cultural norms, modify laws, and create new medical protocols. East, West, North, and South: a host of tireless workers carried out reforms at all levels.

Few people realized that in the years when little public attention was paid to women’s rights, dedicated members of the UN Commission on the Status of Women quietly worked on a universal declaration of women’s rights. At last, in 1979, they celebrated success with the adoption of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). By 2004, 177 countries would ratify the Treaty, the first critical step in developing a standard for basic human rights for women. The U.S. would become the only industrialized democracy that has failed to ratify CEDAW – along with Iran, Sudan and Somalia, among others.

THE SECOND DECADE

The Mexico City conference had been planned as part of International Women’s Year, but quickly evolved into a decade for women, and that decade culminated in still another conference. Each UN conference was composed of a formal body of governmental delegates and a separate group of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and individuals. The process of agreeing on resolutions pulled together voices of officialdom and grassroots women, reflecting the movement’s two-pronged thrust. Eventually, there would be four international meetings, each one creating increasingly detailed Plans of Action to change women’s lives.

As Western women prepared for the 1985 conference in Nairobi, a significant controversy arose. President Moi announced that lesbians would not be permitted to enter Kenya, and in response, some U.S. feminist activists urged a boycott of the conference, while others vociferously objected to that strategy. A third faction thought it would be disrespectful of African cultures for lesbians to be outspoken about their sexual orientation. Imagine the stunning surprise when members of an organization called ILIS dared to set up information tables on the University of Nairobi lawn. Even more amazing, the tables were surrounded by Kenyan men asking questions about what it means to be a lesbian. During the days that followed all workshops about lesbians were filled to overflowing by women – and some men – from many cultures.

Conference delegates officially stated that violence in families crosses all race, class, and national lines. They recognized domestic violence as a crime and passed a resolution urging all governments to monitor the incidents and severity of battering, to treat it as a crime and to enforce the law. Botswana, Gabon, Ghana, India, and New Guinea were among the resolution’s sponsors, dispelling the illusion that domestic violence is merely a “Western feminist” concern. In the following years many African women were galvanized into action for women’s rights, including local movements to stop the customary practice of genital mutilation.

On the final day of the conference women from 17 countries gathered for a last informal discussion of violence against women in intimate relations. Eager to find a way of continuing the work of the conference, we agreed to establish a newsletter, which we would call the International Newsletter Against Violence Against Women (INAVAW). A grassroots effort with no funding, INAVAW enabled activists to learn from each other as stories of both failed and successful actions spread from one newsletter to another. (INAVAW was edited by the author of this article.)

All over the world women who had never published an article had begun to teach each other how to create newsletters, journals and books. Santiago-based “ISIS International” published extensive bibliographies of women’s global activism and distributed their magazine about women’s rights across the world. In one issue the magazine described how women in Lima, Peru spontaneously organized themselves into a mutual defense group. When a man assaulted his wife the women descended on him shouting, “Let her go, you brute, don’t you dare to touch her.” The man backed out of the doorway of a small shack, arms raised against furious blows raining down on him. Outrite, a British feminist newspaper, picked up the story and then INAVAW reprinted it and mailed it to women in 42 countries. The word was out. Women all over the world could cooperate to stop abuse – though rarely with raised fists.

RAPE: A HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION

An earlier wakeup call had come in 1971 when the world learned that well over a hundred thousand Bengali women had been raped by Pakistani soldiers during Bangladesh’s war of independence. Women throughout the world protested the rapes and were outraged on learning that rape victims were deemed unmarriageable and treated as outcasts. (In 1996 Pakistani feminist activists published an apology on behalf of Pakistan for what the soldiers had done to Bengali women.) Amnesty International was one of the organizations that began to pay closer attention to women’s rights and that eventually recognized rape as a Human Rights violation:

“In the wars of today, 90 percent of casualties are civilians, 75 percent of whom are women and children. A century ago, 90 percent of war casualties were male soldiers…. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against women says, ‘Rape remains the least condemned war crime’…. The use of rape in conflict reflects the inequalities women face in their everyday lives in peacetime. Until governments take responsibility for their obligations to ensure equality, and end discrimination against women, rape will continue to be a favored weapon of the aggressor.”

Reports and Action Plans from Nairobi made it clear that another global meeting was essential -- to refine analyses of the problems and to follow up on Action Plans made at previous conferences. Beijing was chosen as the venue, and 30,000 people attended it. The conference identified 12 critical issues of concern, including poverty, education, violence, and mass media. Delegates published what was widely regarded as the “strongest policy statement in support of women’s rights ever made by the international community.” “Women’s Rights Are Human Rights” was written into the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, and approved by the Chinese government. Still not satisfied, delegates gathered in 2005 for a “Beijing +5” meeting to assess and reaffirm the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

THE INTERNATIONAL CULTURE OF HUMAN RIGHTS

The international movement creates a framework for advocates for abused and marginalized women to learn from each other across national and continental boundaries. It enables women from many cultures to understand the pervasiveness of discrimination and to work collectively toward worldwide change. It is possible here to mention only a fraction of women’s actions that every day all over the world change the way we live. Pressuring power centers at the highest levels and working at the grassroots, women are creating an international culture of human rights.

• • South African women gather in their microloan groups, and agree to discuss the dicey topics of sex, domestic violence and HIV-AIDS. At first, some resist, saying that the topics “are not our culture.” But later they question who it is that creates and names the culture. Gradually, they realize that no cultures are static. Next they dare to see themselves as agents of cultural change by passing on what they have learned about HIV-AIDS, sexuality, and women’s rights to their wider community. At the end of the year they discover that incidents of domestic violence have been cut in half. The African Charter on Human and People’s Rights prohibits FGM as a “harmful practice, which negatively affects the human rights of women.”


• • At the Beijing conference seeds are planted for Indigenous women from Asia, Africa and the Americas to increase their role in international decision-making and advance women’s human rights work. As a result of their work the Beijing Platform for Action specifically addresses the role of Indigenous women. Five years later at Beijing + 5 they present the UN with their own report and form the network, FIMI (International Indigenous Women’s Forum) to continue their work.


• • The Organization of American States adopts the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against women. It is ratified by all countries in the Americas, except Canada, Cuba, Jamaica and the U.S.


• • Nepal adopts an interim constitution recognizing for the first time women’s reproductive rights, and ratifies CEDAW’s Optional Protocol, which empowers women to bring claims of gender discrimination directly to the UN committee.


• • India passes a law addressing domestic violence, targeting husbands, live-in partners, and family members who abuse or threaten women verbally, physically, sexually, emotionally, or economically. Punishment can be up to a year.


• • China marks the 10th anniversary of the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Women, the first comprehensive law that guaranteed women’s rights and gender equality. Women’s federations carry on educational campaigns to encourage enforcement of the law, locally.

We in the international movement may sometimes feel as if we are running backward. But a mere hundred years ago no one imagined we would accomplish the actions listed here. Our campaign has existed for only a historical blink, and it is the most revolutionary movement the world has known. Our race is long distance, but it also takes the form of a marathon, as women from different generations, and numerous nations and religions, hand each other the torch that continues to fire our struggle.

Ginny NiCarthy is a board member of Chaya, which serves South Asian women at risk. She is a Seattle, Washington psychotherapist (www.ginnynicarthy.org), political activist, and writer (www.abusedwomen.org).

---

Top of Page

 

 

---

 

'Stolen Sisters': Murdered and missing in Canada

by: Stephanie Woodard

Posted: November 29, 2004

Indigenous women in crisis

OTTAWA, Ontario - Over the last two decades, some 500 indigenous women in Canada have been murdered or are missing and feared dead, according to ''Stolen Sisters'', a report recently released by Amnesty International. ''Discrimination and violence against indigenous women is Canada's untold human rights issue,'' said Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada. The yearlong process of researching and writing the report included a healing ceremony at the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario for those who had lost daughters, sisters and mothers. ''Elders there shepherded us through the two-day process,'' Neve said. ''Many families felt betrayed by government and had little reason to trust outsiders or officials. We wanted to proceed in a way that was conscious of their needs.'' No one knows exactly how many women have disappeared or died, according to Beverley Jacobs, Mohawk, president of the Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC), which cooperated in the preparation of ''Stolen Sisters.'' This is partly because Canada keeps incomplete records of the ethnicity of victims and perpetrators of crimes, and partly because indigenous people have become so suspicious of the police that they do not necessarily report incidents. Government statistics do estimate, however, that indigenous women between 25 and 44 are five times more likely than other Canadian women of the same age to die as the result of violence. To read the rest of the story http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096409929

Top of Page

 

---

 

---

 

Demanding a Sovereignty: Gender Based Violence and HIV/AIDS             

Must Be Reversed

By Rouzeh Eghtessadi

Violence against women is one of the most unyielding and fundamental stumbling blocks encountered by efforts aligned with objectives of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) Beijing Platform For Action (BPFA), the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and other commitments and promises that states have made towards enabling women and girls to enjoy their rights and realize their full potential in society.  Gender based violence (GBV) has become a raging epidemic. Clearly we cannot proclaim to be endevouring towards peace, human security and sustainable development without addressing it. Furthermore, we cannot expect our battle cries to carry, in the fight against the multi-faceted HIV/AIDS epidemic - unless we address the weaponry that violence yields. Women and girls’ livelihoods; education, food and nutrition security, care work and other productive and reproductive roles; continue to suffer under the blatant burdens generated by the HIV/AIDS epidemic – and craftily fueled by all forms of violence against them. The unambiguous linkage between gender based violence and HIV/AIDS is becomes more apparent as responses are accelerates in addressing both epidemics – both entangled in a vicious circle that is grossly feminised. 

Violence against women (VAW) can present in physical, psychological and sexual variations, through: battery, femicide, honor-killing, rape and marital rape, female genital cutting and other cultural practices (wife inheritance, virgin myths), mutilation, sexual harassment, arranged/forced marriages, female feticide (aborting female foetus), sex trafficking and forced prostitution, selective malnourishment, verbal abuse and character defamation, female infanticide, forced sterilisation and forced pregnancy. While the international community may view male violence against women as legally intolerable, it is still considered an acceptable part of life in many societies - including those who have survived violence . These forms of VAW are either causal to HIV infection among women, or consequences of their being HIV positive. In many cultures wife-beating is justified, and research has firmly revealed that women who are beaten or dominated by their partners are much more likely to become infected with HIV than women who live in non-violent households.
In most instances, violence interferes primarily with women’s ability to negotiate condom use, and thus protect themselves from HIV transmission. Safe, satisfying sex – a strongly advocated prevention mode - is an alien concept to most community members in the southern African region. And when introduced, remains within the male domain. After all – culturally women and girls are not supposed to have knowledge on sex, have questions about sex, initiate sex or make choices and suggestions around sex acts. Negotiating safe sex, by a woman, continues to be one of the greatest challenges to prevention programming. Suggesting use of a condom is aligned with distrust, the woman being promiscuous and violating the man’s ‘right’ to have sex they way he likes it, thus commonly extracting violence from him.
Women in situations of violence often live in fear of the responses that their abusers will have to their behavior, and therefore may not seek HIV/AIDS related counseling and testing, disclose their HIV status to their partners, or adhere to prescribed medical treatment