Gender based violence

GENDER BASED VIOLENCE: A
GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE:
THE SOCIAL, CULTURAL AND
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF GENDER
VIOLENCE IN
REFERENCE TO WOMEN.
Rachel Wela Nkumanda
Chairperson
South African Women in Dialogue
London

WHAT IS GENDER BASED VIOLENCE?
 Gender based violence refers to violence on
women by male perpetrators. The male
perpetrators could be a brother, a father, a
husband, a partner, a male relative or family friend,
a colleague, a boss and lastly violence from
strangers.

WHAT IS CLASSED AS VIOLENCE?
LOOKING AT THE DIFFERENT FORMS OF VIOLENCE.

VERBAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL
VIOLENCE REFERS TO:

 Angry retorts at any form of communication the
woman might make
 Gradually increasing negative comments about the
woman’s appearance, how she performs certain
tasks in the home or anything else which might be
displeasing to her husband/partner
 Making negative comments which are clearly not an
authentic description of her, it could be telling the
woman she is stupid when she is not. This is
repeated until the woman starts believing she must
be stupid

 Calling her derogatory names to belittle the woman
till she starts believing him for example b---h or h----
t
 Advancing to making degrading comments on
social occasions with friends and acquaintances
particularly what the woman wears, her looks or
how she behaves
 Whispering derogatory names in the woman’s ear
when in company such as in parties or any other
social occasion to destabilise her and make her
lose her confidence when in company. This could
be a way of trying to make the woman avoid
attending social occasions so that he can isolate
her

 Coercion or making constant threats and never
holding a normal conversation with the woman
 Being emotionally distant and unwilling to be
affectionate or loving
 Shifting from being scathing when alone at home
and change dramatically when in company of
others to being overly affectionate as a show to
others how good he is to his wife/partner
 Arbitrary deprivation of liberty and isolation, by not
liking her family members or friends and not
wanting them to visit the home or for her to see
them anymore or locking her in the home

 Making abrupt decisions like going to a social
occasion then suddenly deciding they have to leave
even if they have been there for less than an hour
 Constantly changing what he likes so that she
never knows what he will accept when he comes
home making her be hesitant constantly and telling
her off for never listening or knowing anything

 Touching intimately or pinching breasts which is a
violation of physical space
 Clapping, kicking, punching, beating her head
against something
 Dragged by the hair or pulling hair

 Have a hard object thrown at her
 Burning
 Have limbs broken or any other skeletal injury

 Serious soft tissue injuries which would require
medical attention
 Suffocation and strangulation
 Cut, stabbed or shot
 Ultimately being killed by their partners or
husbands.

 Explicit verbal communication of a sexual nature it
could be statements of what the man wishes to do
to the woman or comments on her body parts
 Touching the woman inappropriately usually on the
breast or derriere
 Sending sexually explicit texts and/or emails

 Sexual harassment, which refers to directing of
persistent sexual remarks and looks or inappropriate
physical contact in the work place often with threats that
the woman will lose her job if not compliant.
 Recently the problem of stalking, a very frightening
experience, has been added to this category and is now
a crime in some countries
 Rape which includes marital rape. A lot of times women
are raped by someone they know and also by strangers
 Forced prostitution which usually involves human
trafficking

 Child sexual abuse
 Female genital mutilation/cutting
 Rape in modern wars for instance the conflict in the
Congo, the Rwandan genocide and the war in
Bosnia and Herzegovina after the collapse of the
USSR.

WOMEN BROUGHT UP IN DIFFERENT
CULTURES EXPERIENCE:
 Various forms of violence which display lower
levels of appreciation and respect and as such
can be positioned to receive treatment that is
detrimental to their well-being.

Gang Rape:
Earlier this year we received news via the I.B
TIMES of 2 teenage girls, a 19 year old gang raped
and hanged publicly; a 48 year old woman was
hanged but it could not be confirmed that she had
been raped. Most of these cases have occurred in
India mainly in Uttar Pradesh; only one case has
been reported in Pakistan.

Acid attacks:
Common in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India,
Afghanistan, Nepal and Cambodia. The women
reported that men are angry with them for ending
relationships and for refusing sexual harassment,
sexual exploitation, proposals of marriage and
demands for dowry. BBC News 19/04/2012
reported increasing acid attacks on women in
Pakistan with 150 women per year being affected.
There are reported acid attacks in the UK for
various reasons not necessarily cultural.

Dowry related killings:
 New Delhi, India a woman who was being tortured by
her in laws over dowry agreed to donate a kidney to her
husband as payment for dowry. In some publications it
is alleged she then killed herself as her in laws
continued to abuse after she had donated her kidney
though they had promised to end the abuse if she
donates her kidney. In May 2014 IB Times reported
that a pregnant woman had been set on fire by her
husband over dowry in Nepal. Varsha Ramakrishnan in
her report for Pulitzer.com 11th October, 2013 stated
“The National Crime Records Bureau of India reported
8,233 dowry deaths in 2012—in other words, one wife is
killed every 60 minutes. However, since social and
cultural taboos discourage women from reporting cases,
the 8,233 cases represent only the tip of a
predominantly submerged iceberg.”

Honour based violence:
Usually family members believe someone has
brought shame to the family or community by doing
something that is not in keeping with traditional
belief, some of the reasons are: having a
relationship with someone from a different culture
or refusing to go into an arranged marriage,
wanting to get out of an arranged marriage or a
forced marriage, taking part in activities considered
not in keeping with tradition.

 Female Genital Mutilation has recently been given
much attention in the UK. There are 65,000 girls
(Metro, 3rd July, 2014) at risk of genital mutilation.
The UK government is expected to intervene
urgently to stop the cutting taking place and to
introduce measures that are enshrined in law to
deal with the situation
 Violence Against Women in Latin America and the
Caribbean: a comparative analysis of population-
based data from 12 countries shows that between
41% and 82% of women who were abused by their
partner experienced a physical injury, ranging from
cuts and bruises to broken bones, miscarriages,
and burns. (WHO, 2013.17.01)

 Recently we have seen kidnapping of young girls
from college in Nigeria. This is still unresolved.
 Women have been treated as the property of the
family or husband. They can be given away for
marriage to anyone as determined by their family
often at a very young age.
 Child Brides: In some cultures girls as young as 7
years old are dressed as brides for a mass
marriage ceremony to men old enough to be their
fathers.

THE WAY FORWARD...
 Enhancing of awareness concerning violence
against women through political campaigns and use
of different media platforms to bring this issue in the
open thus encouraging women to break their
silence concerning their experience of violence.
 Ensuring that expectations of service provision can
be met in practice. This means specialist services
for victim support, information and advice services,
Free phone services/help lines and ongoing
monitoring of service performance
 Ensure that the campaigns deal with issues that are
current and are based on existing evidence and
most recent surveys

 Strategies to deal with gender violence should be
dealt with at government level with clear strategies
for tackling all issues of gender violence, improving
how the criminal justice systems respond through
improvement of training to include women’s rights
and gender violence
 Changes should be made through addressing
cultural based gender discrimination and social
norms so that children of both genders can learn to
respect each other from a young age

SERVICE PROVISION FOR SURVIVORS
 Safety : provision of safe accommodation for
survivors of gender violence
 Health care for their injuries
 Health care for their sexual health and reproductive
health needs
 Post rape care and counselling
 Aftercare to help women to rebuild their lives
practically and educationally
 Facilitate access to the police and justice systems
 Ensure access for women who live in remote areas

GENDER VIOLENCE IS A HUMAN RIGHTS
ISSUE WHEN THERE IS INHIBITION OF
WOMEN TO ENJOY RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS
WHICH ARE ENJOYED BY THEIR MALE
COUNTERPARTS.

A BRIEF LIST OF STATISTICAL INFORMATION
 In a recent research by the FRA (EU Agency for
fundamental rights) presented during International
Women’s Day week in Brussels in February 2014
covering countries in the EU, 55% of women have
been confronted with one or more forms of sexual
harassment, 33% of women had experienced
sexual and/or physical violence since the age of 15
and 18% women had experienced stalking.

UN WOMEN GLOBAL REVIEW 2013
 In the US, 83% of girls aged 12-16 have
experienced some form of sexual harassment in
public schools - See more at:
http://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-
violence-against-women/facts-and-
figures#sthash.VVJbqwwZ.dpuf

 Women and girls represent 55% of the estimated
20.9 million victims of forced labour worldwide, 98%
of the estimated 4.5 million forced into sexual
exploitation - See more at:

 In Australia, Canada, Israel, South Africa and the
United States, intimate partner violence accounts
for between 40 and 70 percent of female murder
victims - See more at:
 Approximately 140 million girls and women in the
world have suffered female genital
mutilation/cutting - See more at:

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
 Soraya Chemally: 50 facts about Domestic Violence
(google)
 Varsha Ramakrishnan: The Dowry System in India – Is
the trend changing? Varsha works for
Pulitzer Centre for Crisis Reporting.
www.pulitzercenter.org/people/varsha-ramakrishnan
 freethoughtblogs.com/.../our-men-throw-acid-in-our-
faces
 The Co-ordinated Action Against Domestic Abuse
(Caada) charity in the UK provides support for
professionals and organisations working with Domestic
Violence

 United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the
empowerment of women – www.unwomen.org
 FRA – EU Agency for fundamental Rightswww.fra.europa.eu
 Fundamental rights set out minimum standards to ensure that
a person is treated with dignity. Whether this is the right to be
free from discrimination on the basis of your age, disability or
ethnic background, the right to the protection of your personal
data, or the right to get access to justice, these rights should
all be promoted and protected.
 Book: Dee Dee Glass (1995) All My Fault - Why don’t women
leave abusive men, Virago Press, London,UK.

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