Gender Violence Blocks Development Targets: Report

By Rebecca Harshbarger

WeNews correspondent

Monday, March 8, 2010

Violence against women and girls blocks progress in every major development target, finds an Action Aid report released today, International Women's Day.

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Violence Derails HIV-AIDS Efforts

Violence has also derailed global campaigns against HIV-AIDS, where the face of the pandemic is increasingly female.

Over 17 million women are living with HIV and an estimated 7,000 new women are infected daily. Among young adults in sub-Saharan Africa, three-quarters of those with HIV between 15 and 24 years old are female.

Action Aid's research finds the systematic abuse of women's rights has fueled the spread of HIV-AIDS on the continent.

Whether it comes to negotiating condom use or refusing to have sex at all--as in Kalokoh's case--gender inequality makes women much more vulnerable to HIV infection.

Conversely, a woman's ability to assert herself can be her protection.

Kalokoh, for instance, decided to join a women's anti-violence forum supported by Action Aid, which is how the organization and its partners heard her story.

At those meetings, Kalokoh says, members of the forum told her that if her husband inflicts violence, she can report him to the Family Support Unit at her local police station. She says she has warned her husband of the consequences of continuing to hurt her and now the beatings have stopped.

"If he does begin to mistreat me, I will not only leave him, but report him to the police," she said.

Concrete Remedial Action Scarce

In the report, Zohra Moose, a women's rights advisor for Action Aid, says women's organizations have drawn attention to the violence women face in all stages of their life, but concrete remedial action is still scarce.

The agency, which was based in the United Kingdom from 1972 until it moved to South Africa in 2003, hopes its research and call for action will push Great Britain to appoint a minister on women and girls and make ending violence against women more of a foreign policy priority.

Moose, who works in the group's London office, says violence against women is still too often seen as a private matter--hidden in the sanctity of a mother or daughter's home--or an aberration of war.

"It's getting more recognition in the area of conflict, but there's an idea that it's something extreme. But it's much more mainstream, much more normal," she said.

Around the world, about 1-in-3 women face violence in settings such as home, work and school.

Rebecca Harshbarger is a journalist. She started a media company called Africa Connections that connects African immigrants with independent news from their land. The company's pilot site recently launched at www.ugandansabroad.org. You can follow her on twitter at www.twitter.com/rebeccaugust.

For more information:

United Nations Millennium Goals
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

Women to Women International; "Join Me on the Bridge," March 8
http://www.womenforwomen.org/bridge/index.php

About International Women's Day
http://www.internationalwomensday.com/about.asp

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1 COMMENTS | Login or Sign Up to post comments

First of all thanks a lot for the useful and informative article. Personally I do not understand, how some people can be so cruel. Domestic violence is very common in all over the world... The years are passing and many people, especially men do not change their attitudes towards women. As the author mentioned, this problem is really a big problem in pour countries. I think that the government should take something in order to prevent this cruel. Anyway I will definitely try to find more information about this problem. Thanks a lot for the useful information one more time. Respectfully, Peter Watson from iphone development