Some readers may find the following facts and information disturbing and difficult to read, and for that I apologize. However, it is crucial that we acknowledge the realities of what is happening to millions of women all over our world on a daily basis. The torture, suffering, shame, and hopelessness that women endure at the hands of oppression must end.
At least 1 in every 3 women globally has been beaten, forced into sex, slavery, trafficking and multiple forms of abuse. That means that as you sit safely in your own environment reading this article, women are being tortured all over the world. They are being stripped of their humanity. Their souls and spirits are being violently stripped away through physical, sexual, emotional, psychological and financial abuse at the hands of monsters. These monsters view women as being subservient, worthless whores who are disposable commodities. These monsters derive from all different cultures and backgrounds. They are living within our global communities in epidemic proportions, including the United States.
My mission is to never stay silent on such issues. It is an ugly subject to discuss, one that many shy away from. However, that is exactly why it must be discussed. We must remove the stigmas, shame and secrecy that are attached to violence against women. The more we talk about it, the more exposed the subject becomes.
Violence against women is not a gender issue; it is a human right issue. Women deserve the same opportunity to achieve equal economic, social, cultural and political rights. They deserve to live without fear. Living free from violence is a human right. Women should be able to live safely in their communities without becoming victims of violent crimes.
It should be every women's human right to achieve free will, receive an education, obtain financial stability, marry, bear children, have control over their own bodies, become politically involved, and enjoy religious and culture freedom as every human being should. Women should be creating and thriving throughout our world not surviving and recovery from inhumane atrocities forced upon them.
In an effort to acknowledge the "elephant in the room", I have decided to outline some of the most abhorrent crimes against women on a global level.
While there is no doubt that we are all aware at least on some level that there are terrible things happening to women, I am quite sure that it is not possible to grasp the true horror of this subject without examining it fully. Some examples of the torturous practices worldwide include bride kidnapping, honor killing, bride burning, acid attacks, female genital mutilation, human trafficking, and ritual servitude. While most of these atrocities occur in other parts of the world, our own United Stated has experienced them as well.
Bride kidnapping is a common practice in countries like Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. What happens is that when the time comes for a man to be married in Kyrgyzstan, a man or his family will pick a woman and she will be kidnapped. The prospective husband and his male relatives or friends abduct the girl and take her to the man’s family home, where the older women of the family try to convince the victim to accept the marriage. Some families will keep the girl hostage to break her will; while others will let her go if she remains defiant.
The kidnapped woman’s family may also become involved in the process, either urging the woman to stay if the marriage is believed to be socially acceptable or advantageous for the prospective bride and her family, or opposing the marriage on various grounds and helping liberate the woman.
In countries like Ethiopia and Rwanda, the act of bride kidnapping is quite brutal, where the man kidnaps the woman and proceeds to rape her. The family of the woman either then feels obliged to consent to the union, or is forced to do so when the kidnapper impregnates her, as no one else would marry a pregnant woman.
An honor killing is defined by Amnesty International as “a punitive murder, committed by members of a family against a female member of their family whom the family and/or wider community believes to have brought dishonor upon the family.” Honor killings may occur when a woman refuses an arranged marriage, being the VICTIM of a sexual assault, seeking a divorce even from an abusive husband, or committing adultery. Any behavior that is deemed “dishonorable” to the family is therefore justified whereas the act would otherwise be deemed murder. UNICEF has reported that in India, more than 5,000 brides are killed annually because their marriage dowries are considered insufficient. As of 2004, honor killings have occurred within parts of various countries, such as Albania, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Ecuador, Germany, India, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Uganda, United Kingdom and the United States.
Another practice that is seen is known as bride burning. This act is a form of domestic violence practiced in parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and other countries located on or around the Indian subcontinent. In these cases, a man or his family douses the wife with some type of flammable liquid, usually gasoline or kerosene. She is then set on fire, eventually leading to her death.
Acid attacks are a violent phenomena that primarily occur in Afghanistan. Perpetrators of these attacks throw acid at their victims (usually at their faces), burning them. The consequences include permanent scarring of the face and body as well as potential blindness.
Perhaps the most recognizable facet of these crimes is that of human trafficking.
Since the fall of the iron curtain, the impoverished former Eastern bloc countries such as Albania, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine have been identified as major trafficking source countries for women and children. Young women and girls are lured by the promise of money and work and then reduced to sexual slavery, sent to other countries never to be heard from again.
It is estimated that 2/3 of women trafficked for prostitution annually come from Eastern European countries; three-quarters have never worked as prostitutes before. The major destinations are Western Europe (Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, UK and Greece), the Middle East (Turkey, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates), Asia, Russia and the United States. An estimated 500,000 women from Central and Eastern Europe are working in prostitution in the EU alone.
Ritual servitude occurs mainly in parts of Ghana where traditional religious shrines take human beings, usually young virgin girls, as payment for services, or in religious atonement for alleged misdeeds of a family member—almost always a female.
These shrine slaves serve the priests, elders and owners of a traditional religious shrine without remuneration and without their consent, although the consent of the family or clan may be involved. Those who practice ritual servitude feel that the girl is serving the god or gods of the shrine and is married to the gods of the shrine.
If a girl runs away or dies, she must be replaced by another girl from the family. Some girls in ritual servitude are the third or fourth girl in their family suffering for the same crime, sometimes for something as small as the loss of trivial property.
As disturbing as these facts are, there is still hope for change around the world. Currently there is a piece of legislature in the U.S. aimed at making violence against women and girls around the world an unexceptable crime. The biparitsan International Violence Against Women Act will enhance our government's ability to respond to victims of international crimes against women as previously mentioned.. In addition, it would provide aid and resources to women groups around the world working to end such horrific violence providing; prevention programs, building women and childrens educational, financial, political and social realities into a thriving future filled with possibilities.
Please never stay silent about such social issues. Silence is the killer. Just by informing friends and family members about these crimes against women throughtout our world (including the U.S.) is being part of the solution. Let's help turn millions of women and children's pain into power! For more information please refer to Amnesty International.
Posted Oct 11, 2010Sources: Amnesty International, listverse.com, V-day, Human Trafficking.org
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