Ntozake Shange (n.d.) demonstrated the issue of violence against women in the following poem:
With No Immediate Cause
every 3 minutes a woman is beaten
every five minutes a
woman is raped/every ten minutes
a lil girl is molested
yet i rode the subway today
i sat next to an old man who
may have beaten his old wife
3 minutes ago or 3 days/30 years ago
he might have sodomized his
daughter but i sat there
cuz the young men on the train
might beat some young women
later in the day or tomorrow
i might not shut my door fast
every 3 minutes it happens
some woman's innocence
rushes to her cheeks/pours from her mouth
like the betsy wetsy dolls have been torn
apart/their mouths
menses red & split/every
three minutes a shoulder
is jammed through plaster and the oven door/
chairs push thru the rib cage/hot water or
boiling sperm decorate her body
i rode the subway today
& bought a paper from a
man who might
have held his old lady onto
a hot pressing iron/i don't know
maybe he catches lil girls in the
park & rips open their behinds
with steel rods/i can't decide
what he might have done i only
know every 3 minutes
every 5 minutes every 10 minutes/so
i bought the paper
looking for the announcement
the discovery/of the dismembered
woman's body/the
victims have not all been
identified/today they are
naked and dead/refuse to
testify/one girl out of 10's not
coherent/i took the coffee
& spit it up/i found an
announcement/not the woman's
bloated body in the river/floating
not the child bleeding in the
59th street corridor/not the baby
broken on the floor/
there is some concern
that alleged battered women
might start to murder their
husbands & lovers with no
immediate cause"
i spit up i vomit i am screaming
we all have immediate cause
every 3 minutes
every 5 minutes
every 10 minutes
every day
women's bodies are found
in alleys & bedrooms/at the top of the stairs
before i ride the subway/buy a paper/drink
coffee/i must know/
have you hurt a woman today
did you beat a woman today
throw a child across a room
are the lil girl's panties
in yr pocket
did you hurt a woman today
i have to ask these obscene questions
the authorities require me to
establish
immediate cause
every three minutes
every five minutes
every ten minutes
every day.
The following websites provide more information on violence against women:
This website was specifically designed to inform general public about global violence against women and encourage to participate or create programs fighting the violence. The websites provides latest information on violence against women around the globe and presents statistics and publications on this issue. Moreover, ideas on how to fight violence and opportunity to present one’s new idea could be found on this website as well.
A great website that provides links to different sources related to the Global Violence against Women. Under the VDay Special Anti-Violence Section one can find suggested websites, books, journal articles, and much more on the issues of violence against women (as well as child abuse and domestic violence).
For those who are interested in academic research on the addressed issue, please refer to the following article:
Kalaca, S., & Dundar, P. (2010). Violence against women: The perspective of academic women. BMC Public Health, 10490-496.
This article discusses results of the survey, in which 115 academic women participated and presented their viewpoints on violence against women (VAW). The participants identified that women from lower SES face the highest risk for VAW. Moreover, educated women are more likely to be victims of psychological abuse, whereas uneducated and nonworking women more often experience physical abuse. In fact, participants recognized that they have a 35% chance of becoming a victim of one of the kinds of VAW. Women from academic field proposed that VAW around the world could be decreased with women’s empowerment, enhancement of societal educational levels, and new regulations in legal system.
Great videos addressing the problem:
Great videos addressing the problem:
Violence against women is a common practice around the world. Women face physical, sexual, psychological, economical, and other forms of abuse every day worldwide, and the number of victims is only an estimate….
According to the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (n.d.), the following facts are true about women in our world:
Femicide ─ the murder of women because they are women
- In the United States, one-third of women murdered each year are killed by intimate partners.
- In South Africa, a woman is killed every 6 hours by an intimate partner.
- In India, 22 women were killed each day in dowry-related murders in 2007.
- In Guatemala, two women are murdered, on average, each day.
Trafficking
- Women and girls comprise 80 percent of the estimated 800,000 people trafficked annually, with the majority (79 percent) trafficked for sexual exploitation.
Harmful practices
- Approximately 100 to 140 million girls and women in the world have experienced female genital mutilation/cutting, with more than 3 million girls in Africa annually at risk of the practice.
- Over 60 million girls worldwide are child brides, married before the age of 18, primarily in South Asia (31.1 million and Sub-Saharan Africa (14.1 million).
Sexual violence against women and girls
- An estimated 150 million girls under 18 suffered some form of sexual violence in 2002 alone.
- As many as 1 in 4 women experience physical and/or sexual violence during pregnancy, which increases the likelihood of having a miscarriage, stillbirth and abortion . Up to 53 percent of women physically abused by their intimate partners are being kicked or punched in the abdomen.
- In Sao Paulo, Brazil, a woman is assaulted every 15 seconds.
- In Ecuador, adolescent girls reporting sexual violence in school identified teachers as the perpetrator in 37 per cent of cases.
Rape as a method of warfare
- Approximately 250,000 to 500,000 women and girls were raped in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
- In eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, at least 200,000 cases of sexual violence, mostly involving women and girls, have been documented since 1996, though the actual numbers are considered to be much higher.
Cost of violence against women
- Domestic violence alone cost approximately US$1.16 billion in Canada and US$5.8 billion in the United States. In Australia, violence against women and children costs an estimated US$11.38 billion per year.
Sexual Harassment
- Between 40 and 50 per cent of women in European Union countries experience unwanted sexual advancements, physical contact or other forms of sexual harassment at their workplace.
- In the United States, 83 per cent of girls, aged 12 to 16 experienced some form of sexual harassment in public schools.
In order to bring attention to the violence against women on a global level, the U.S. Senate and the House passed the International Violence against Women Act (I-VAWA) in October 2007 and April 2008 respectfully (Gosselin, 2010). The Act is a step forward to recognize violence against women as a global problem that needs immediate attention. Under this Act the United States supports foreign assistance programs (with over $200 million annually) that should improve quality of health care, educational and economic opportunities for women around the world. Moreover, under I-VAWA the U.S. organizes training programs in foreign countries that educate local police and military personnel on issues and assistance of women, who became victims of domestic violence. “Trainees learn to investigate intimate partner violence in addition to techniques for traffic accident investigation, weapons familiarization, vehicle searches, community policing, explosives detection, the penal code, baton training, handcuffing, and a variety of other law-enforcement skills” (Gosselin, 2010, p.4).
References
Gosselin, D.K. (2010). Heavy hands: An introduction to the crimes of family violence. Upper Saddle River: Pearson.
International Violence Against Women: Stories and Solutions. (2009, October 22). [Video]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LISZjE7tL6E&feature=related
Kalaca, S., & Dundar, P. (2010). Violence against women: The perspective of academic women. BMC Public Health, 10490-496.
Say No – Unite to End Violence Against Women (2011, November 18). [Video]. Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/saynotoviolence
Shange, N. (n.d.). “With No Immediate Cause.” Retrieved from http://faculty.pittstate.edu/~knichols/wpoets.html
United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (n.d.). Say no - unite to end violence against women: Overview. Retrieved from http://saynotoviolence.org/about-say-no
