ENDING IMPUNITY FOR VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN:

AN ACHIEVABLE GOAL

A WOW! e-Brief

Work of Women program @ World Neighbors

March 2007

 

Overview

Violence against women is an experience that women share around the globe, in every culture and in every setting. It profoundly impacts not only its direct victims and survivors, but all women, since the threat and the fear of violence is something that females experience differently than males. It is an issue that touches women in their homes, at their places of work, in educational settings, on the street and elsewhere.

The United Nations’ WomenWatch states that violence against women is “an obstacle to the achievement of the objectives of equality, development and peace. Violence against women both violates and impairs or nullifies the enjoyment by women of their human rights and fundamental freedoms.” Most definitions acknowledge that violence can be physical, emotional or psychological and sexual. Women who have experienced violence and live to tell about it usually agree that the psychological effects are some of the hardest to deal with. Long after that body heals, the psychological aftermath continues to make them unsure of their worth and abilities, as well as afraid to think or do something that might provoke more violence.

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Though work to reduce and eliminate violence against women began in force in the 1960s and 1970s, violence is still at epidemic levels around the world. While there have been small successes, this issue has been remarkably challenging to address in an effective way. This is in large part due to the fact that violence against women is directly related to long-standing traditions and social and cultural definitions of male and female roles. To greater and lesser degrees depending on the culture and location, girls’ and women’s traditional roles, especially their sexuality, are maintained and enforced with the threat of violence.

Fathers, husbands and brothers, even sons, are still charged in many societies with ensuring that their female relatives behave in an acceptable manner, and maintaining the “honor” of a family name—even to the point of killing female family members who may have been raped. In the U.S., a still common question of rape victims is why they were in a certain place or outside on the street after dark—implying that they may have “asked for it” by going places they shouldn’t.

Violence is also used against women to punish others when women are seen as male property, or the responsibility of men. For example when male family members transgress social boundaries, their sisters or daughters may be raped as a punishment. Or women are targeted because of their reproductive role, and raped, mutilated or killed during war or conflict to show their countrymen the power of the opposition force. There are myriad other “faces” of violence against women, including dowry-related violence, trafficking of women and girls, forced prostitution, female genital cutting and honor killings.

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The heavy curtain between public and private areas of human life serves to make domestic violence difficult to address and challenging to change. For centuries the family, or household, has been seen as a private issue, an area that government and legal systems have refrained from involving themselves in for the most part. The issue of violence against women was a key area that early activists in violence prevention pushed governments to reckon with, since without doing so women were never going to be able to exercise their full range of human rights. Often the first step in domestic violence prevention and service provision work is breaking the silence about women’s experiences in their homes and with their partners.

The United Nations chose “Ending Impunity for Violence Against Women” as the theme for this year’s International Women’s Day on March 8. In so doing, this body of States focused attention on an important aspect of why we still struggle with extremely high levels of violence. Impunity, or lack of consequences, for committing violence communicates a societal acceptance of it. Ending impunity suggests that public and private bodies actively oppose violence, agreeing on the consequences and enforcing them. In other words, we must make violence against women socially and culturally unacceptable.

There are many other necessary pieces to this complex and urgent work—designing and managing effective services, strengthening healthy relationships and communities, promoting gender equity—but imagine a world in which violence against women had serious consequences that we agreed upon and all joined in expressing. That would be a powerful first step.

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World Neighbors Work to End Violence

A Conversation with Rainera Lucero and Natalie Elwell

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