| inbluevt | Date: Saturday, 2013/07/27, 5:58 PM | Message # 1 | DMCA |
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You’ve seen the statistics—and they’re terrifying.
Thirty-five percent of women worldwide will experience some form of physical or sexual violence, according to a World Health Organization study released last month.
“Violence against women is one of the world’s most pervasive human rights abuses. The WHO statistic is one in three women globally will be beaten, raped, or coerced into sex in their lifetime, and we know that rates reach 70 percent in some countries. Frankly, I think the one in three is a gross understatement based on the work that I do on this issue,” says Cristina Finch, managing director for the women’s human rights program at Amnesty International USA.
In Egypt, 173 cases of mob sexual assaults were reported from June 30-July 9 during the
Tahrir Square protests, resulting in only one arrest. Forty-six cases were reported on June 30 alone. In Jordan, Syrian refugees force their 13-year-old daughters to get married because of the constant fear of rape, which is “worse than death.” Syrian refugees in Lebanon—three-quarters of whom are women and children—aren’t faring any better: Living in constant fear of rape and with no options for earning money, women have turned to prostitution as “survival sex.”
Governments are slow to respond—if they respond at all. Addressing sexual violence in Egypt and Syria has been largely absent at the policy level, writes Peter Blair at The Huffington Post. Not a peep has been heard from British Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel
about the topic. President Obama merely chided former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi about the recurring violence while on a phone call before Morsi was ousted, according to Blair.
More
A mural with Arabic that reads "no harassment," is seen on a wall in Cairo, Egypt, May 24, 2013. Besides the daily experience of harassment
on the streets of Egypt, sexual assaults at anti-government protests,
where women have been groped, stripped and even raped, have risen both
in number and intensity during the past year of continued unrest in
Egypt. (Hassan Ammar/AP)
Message edited by inbluevt - Saturday, 2013/07/27, 6:03 PM |
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