The intolerable status quo:
Charlotte Bunch *
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![]() | Roughly 60 million women who should be alive today are missing because of gender discrimination, predominantly in South and West Asia, China and North Africa. |
![]() | In the United States, where overall violent crime against women has been growing for the past two decades, a woman is physically abused by her intimate partner every nine seconds. |
![]() | In India, more than 5,000 women are killed each year because their inlaws consider their dowries inadequate. A tiny percentage of the murderers are brought to justice. |
![]() | In some countries of the Middle East and Latin America, husbands are often exonerated from killing an unfaithful, disobedient or wilful wife on the grounds of honour. |
![]() | Rape as a weapon of war has been documented in seven countries in recent years, though its use has been widespread for centuries. |
![]() | Throwing acid to disfigure a womans face is so common in Bangladesh that it warrants its own section of the penal code. |
![]() | About 2 million girls each year (6,000 every day) are genitally mutilatedthe female equivalent of what would be amputation of all or part of the male penis. |
![]() | More than 1 million children, overwhelmingly female, are forced into prostitution every year, the majority in Asia. In the wake of the AIDS epidemic, younger and younger children are being sought in the belief that they are less likely to be infected. |
Equally shocking is the fact that most gender violence not only goes unpunished but is tolerated in silencethe silence of society as well as that of its victims. Fear of reprisal, censorship of sexual issues, the shame and blame of those violated, unquestioning acceptance of tradition and the stranglehold of male dominion all play their part. In many countries, so does the active or passive complicity of the State and other institutions of moral authority.
In addition, while gender violence is as old as humanity, it is only in the past decade that it has been publicly recognized, systematically studied and legislated against to any significant degree. In the 1990s, such violence finally gained currency on the international level with its recognition as a human rights issue. That is welcome news, and most of the credit goes to womens groups that have struggled against enormous odds to bring the issue to light. But this is no reason for complacency.
As the second millennium draws to a close, there have been reprisals
against the progress in the fieldrightly regarded as a challenge to male
primacy. Some studies even suggest that certain forms of violence against
women and girls are on the rise. For gender violence, in all of its varied
manifestations, is not random and it is not about sex. It serves a deliberate
social function: asserting control over womens lives and keeping them
second-class citizens. Constant vigilance is needed to protect the fragile
gains made thus far, to continue along the road to equalityand to bring
an end to the torrent of daily violence that degrades not only women but
humankind in its entirety.