"My ex-husband shot me through the head as I slept and left me for dead. I managed to walk downstairs, where my daughter
was calling for help. My husband proceeded to stab me with such force that the knife-tip broke off in my intestines. He robbed me of my eyesight, my sense of taste and smell. He robbed me of my family and my stepchildren"
This unidentified woman who gave testimony to a Canadian panel on violence against women is a horrific example of the sufferings of the world women today. The sad revelation by UN that roughly 60 million who should be alive today were 'missing' because of gender discrimination, predominantly in South Asia and West Asia, China and North Africa, is indicative of the menacing increase in the brutality against women. Whether it is the developed
countries or the developing ones, women everywhere, everyday, every minute and every second are being battered, raped, arbitrarily imprisoned, tortured, mutilated and even murdered ghastly.
Homes are on longer a safe citadel for most females. With large scale killing of females in the womb, violence begins for women much before they open their eyes in this world. At home they are battered by husbands, fathers, brothers and uncles. "For tens of millions of women today, home is a locus of terror. It is not the assault of strangers that women need fear the most, but everyday brutality at the hands of relatives, friends. Battering at home constitutes the most universal form of violence against women", observes a UN document. While sexual assaults are physical assaults are broadly accepted as crimes outside the home, attacks within the four walls of home in a number of countries are brushed aside as private family matter. As such, most of the cases remain unregistered, uninvestigated and perpetuators of such crimes go unpunished.
The brutality against women is reflected in popular culture the world over. Male attitudes towards women everywhere have been, by and large, same. In most of the South Asian countries, they are taught, in the name of family honour, to bear and tolerate every atrocity, and not to report. The gist of a Spanish riddle, for instance, is: "What do mules and women have in common?" Similarly, a Russian saying echoes the same refrain, "a wife may love a husband who never beats her, but she does not respect him."
Women's unequal statues in society and the fact that they have no viable alternative available to them for survival are the prime reason for their abuse at home and outside. Even if they seek prosecution of their abusers, the success rate is very low. A British study, for instance, reveals that even though 92 per cent of abused women sought the detention of their abusers, actual arrests materialised in only 24 per cent of the cases.
Brutality is widespread largely because it has been sanctioned for centuries by a system which grants women no protection. Insensitivity and indifference of the authorities to the crime against women is evident from the example of Scotland Yard's G.H. Hatherhill's boastful remarks in 1954 claiming that "there are only about 20 murders a year in London and many not at all serious- some are just husbands killing their wives."
Women ventured out to join work force in order to add to the family income. Tragically, the ogre of sexual
harassment continued to haunt them from street to workplace. Even if they do have legal recourse against it, fear of being fired, penalized or ridiculed keeps many women silent. In the absence of a legal definition of sexual harassment in most countries, few mechanisms exist to combat it.
Even though sexual crimes against women are on the rise in many countries, little is being done to change the legal process that makes it virtually impossible for women prove that they have been sexually assaand their chastity defiled. Hence many victimised women prefer to remain silent. Some governments still have repressive laws that make it possible for the rape victims to be charged with criminal offences. Ordinance in at least one South Asian country equates rape with adultery, thus making it possible to charge the rape victims with adultery and whipping or stoning them to death publically. In the United Stated, sexual harassment was not recognised by law until the mid 1970s. It was only in the next decade that the US Supreme Court ruled for the first time that sexual harassment constituted a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Similarly, the European Community also adopted in July 1991 a new code or practice of the protection of the dignity of women and men at work which encourages employers and workers to draw up a company policy statement so as to ban sexual harassment, to appoint trained personnel for handling complaints and to agree on guidelines for disciplinary proceedings.
A number of countries have made the elimination of violence against women a national priority. But such initiatives- however sincere they may be- cannot yield full and desired results unless adhocism is given up and long term, result-oriented measures are adopted and implements. These include, besides other things comprehensive legislative reforms and legal literacy programmes for women to protect their rights, greater economic independence to them, promote gender equality etc.
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