Facts, FAQs, History, what you need to know about Gender Based Violence.
Gender Based Violence.
What is Gender Based Violence?
According to the UN, gender-based violence can be defined as “acts that inflict physical, mental, sexual harm or suffering, threats of such acts, coercion and other deprivations of liberty.” Gender-based violence is a global problem of epidemic proportions. It will affect one in every three women in her lifetime. Violence against women and girls happens everywhere, regardless of race, social situation or economic earnings.
Gender-based violence can also be defined as, “traditional attitudes by which women are regarded as subordinate to men. They also include stereotyped roles which perpetuate widespread practices involving violence or coercion, such as family violence and abuse. Further, forced marriage, dowry deaths, acid attacks and female circumcision” (UN Women).
Global Recognition of Gender Based Violence.
The International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and girls has been observed as a 16-day activism campaign against Gender Based Violence since 1991. The campaign runs for 16 days from 25TH November to 10TH December (Human Rights Day) every year. It was initiated by the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute in 1991 to end violence against women. In 2000, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women was officially adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations and set to be marked on 25TH November every year. The campaign is annually coordinated by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership.
Types of Gender Based Violence.
There are many types of gender-based violence. As defined earlier it can present itself as physical violence, verbal violence, psychological violence, emotional abuse and economic violence. These include but are not limited to what is defined above. The definition also includes: abusive international marriage, domestic violence, elder abuse, forced marriage, HIV and intimate partner violence, homicide, LGBTQ+ intimate partner violence, sexual violence and trafficking.
While gender-based violence can affect all genders, it predominantly affects women and girls.
Facts, Findings and Statistics of Gender Based Violence.
Violence against women and girls is one of the most widespread human rights violations in the world. Globally, an estimated one in three women will experience gender-based violence in her lifetime. Gender-based violence can undermine the health, dignity, security and autonomy of its victims.
According to the World Bank:
- 35% of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence.
- Globally, 7% of women have been sexually assaulted by someone other than a partner.
- Globally, as many as 38% of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner.
- 200 million women have experienced female genital mutilation/cutting.
- In 2018, an estimated one in seven women (13 percent aged 15-49) had experienced physical and or sexual violence from an intimate partner of husband within 12 months. Within the same year, for every 10 victims of human trafficking tracked globally, about five were adult women and two were girls. Most of the detected victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation (92 percent) are females.
- In 2020, globally 81,000 women and girls were killed. 58%, around 47,000 of these women were killed by a close family member or partner.
- Globally, an estimated 736 million women—almost one in three—have been subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both at least once in their life (30 per cent of women aged 15 and older).
- At least 158 countries have passed laws on domestic violence, and 141 have laws on sexual harassment in employment.
- In the past decade, the global rate of child marriage has declined. Young women aged 20-24 years who were married off before the age of 18 has decreased by 15 percent, from nearly one in four in 2010 to one in five in 2020.
With nearly 3.7 billion women and girls in the world (2019), one billion females could be affected in this generation. This is equivalent to the entire population of the African continent.
Gender-based violence knows no boundaries. Any girl or woman can be affected, no matter where or how she lives. But the problem can be most acute in places where women have less social and economic power, or where laws protecting them are not enforced.
Poverty, instability and lack of education can play a role in perpetuating gender-based violence. These factors can be most prevalent in developing countries. Recent global estimates indicate that 700 million girls were married before age 18—many against their will. Girl brides are often vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse.
Effects of Gender Based Violence.
Gender based violence issues are not only devastating for survivors of violence and their families, they also have significant social and economic costs. Violence against women and women’s economic empowerment, though not linear, are closely interlinked.
A study done by UN Women states that decreasing violence against a woman is all-together positive, both in her personal life and how she performs at work. Gender-based violence drastically affects a victim’s confidence, her chance to continue with education, or her ability to thrive in the workplace. It also significantly lowers the productivity of businesses. There is higher turnover, lower productivity, and increased absenteeism.
It also affects following generations where the children are more likely to be at risk of becoming violent in their later life, be lower income earners and have a lower performance at work.
In times of conflict, gender-based violence can also be used a tool of war. In fragile contexts with ongoing war or crisis, early marriage is seen as a legitimate way to protect girls in an otherwise hostile environment. Where people have been forced from their homes, better for a girl to have the protection of her husband than to risk physical or sexual assault from strangers in refugee camps or informal tent settlements.
Many girls and women don’t report what’s happening to them. Some fear the repercussions. Some have no one to listen to them. Some have watched their own moms endure violence in silence. And, in some countries, this kind of violence is presented as normal within families and communities. Thus, the statistics we know are that of reported cases and in many regions, falls short of the actual reality.
Prevalence of Gender Based Violence.
According to a World Health Organization multi-country study among women of reproductive age, it revealed that the overall prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) ranged between 15% in urban areas (such as Japan) to 71% in provincial areas (such as Ethiopia).Evidence reveals that gender based violence among IPV is mostly prominent in developing countries where socioeconomic status is low and education is limited, especially in Sub Saharan Africa countries.
Factors contributing to Gender Based Violence.
Prevalence of Gender based violence is often caused by various factors such as the perpetrator’s sense of power, control and entitlement, gender-based stereotypes which contribute to inequality, drug abuse, cultural norms and traditions about masculinity and femininity and victim-blaming behaviors by the perpetrator.
Gender Based Violence Policies.
The United Nations (UN) began its efforts to fight against gender-based violence with the creation of the Commission on the Status of Women which produced, between 1949 and 1962, a series of documents on the rights that should be equally applied to men and women, without any kind of distinction. Various policies, actions, legal mandates were developed with the aim of instilling protective and preventing measures for women and their empowerment.
General Recommendation No.19 from 1992 was historic as it clearly framed violence against women as a form and manifestation of gender-based discrimination, used to subordinate and oppress women. It also declared Gender based violence as a violation of human rights.
The human rights violated by gender-based violence include:
- The right to life
- The right not to be subject to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
- The right to equal protection according to humanitarian norms in time of international or internal armed conflict
- The right to liberty and security of person
- The right to equal protection under the law
- The right to equality in the family
- The right to the highest standard attainable of physical and mental health
- The right to just and favorable conditions of work.
State parties are urged to comply with the above General recommendation both in public and family life to ensure women are free from the harm caused by gender-based violence in order for them to enjoy their rights and freedoms on an equal basis with men.
What World Vision is doing about Gender Based Violence.
How you can help to stop Gender Based Violence.