Violence against women

Anti violence poster, Peru

In all countries – from the UK to Uganda – women and girls experience violence. Within these countries, it happens to women of different ages, classes, faiths and cultures. Womankind believes that violence against women happens because men and women are not equal. While men also experience violence, the number of women who are hurt and the severity of their injuries are far greater.

One of Womankind’s aims is to eliminate violence against women, by:

• providing services such as counselling and safe housing to women and girls affected by violence
• supporting community education to end acceptance of violence
• working to change laws and practices for the better

What is violence against women?

What are the effects of violence against women?

What causes violence against women?

What is Womankind doing to tackle the problem of violence against women?

What is violence against women?

‘The term “violence against women” means any act of gender-based violence that results in … physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life’.

The UN Declaration on Violence Against Women (1992)

Some women experience violence at home by their boyfriend, husband or other relative. Others face sexual harassment at work. In some countries, women are subjected to harmful traditional practices — such as female genital mutilation —or may be forced to marry at an early age. Women may also be forced into prostitution by traffickers and, in times of conflict, it is women who are most likely to be the target of sexual violence, especially rape.

What are the effects of violence against women?

1. Violence stops women accessing their most basic rights – to safety, health, schooling and work. Due to violence women experience injury, mental health and emotional problems. Violence limits women’s access to land, water and food and their ability to participate in work, education, travel and community meetings. It also stops women and their families from making positive changes in their own lives in order to end the poverty they and their communities experience.

2. Violence against women has economic costs for both the individual and society, including missed work, health care for survivors, emergency shelters and legal cases. For these reasons, violence against women constitutes a major obstacle to development, peace and security.

3. The issue of violence against women cannot be separated from other important issues affecting women, such as HIV and AIDS. Women are at a heightened risk of infection due to violence; but are also subject to violence if their positive status is disclosed.

What causes violence against women?

Womankind believes that discrimination and unequal power relations lie at the heart of women’s greater vulnerability to violence – and that addressing the inequality that is at the heart of all societies must be our priority.

Violence is used as a way of controlling women, both in families and wider society, to keep them in a subordinate position to men. Inadequate laws to challenge violence, negative media images, cultural practices, government complacency and the absence of educational programmes to address the causes and consequences of violence all add to the violence women experience.

What is Womankind doing to tackle the problem of violence against women?

Womankind supports women around the world to end the violence they, their family and friends are experiencing. Through our dynamic partner organisations in Africa, Asia and Latin America, we support local solutions to violence against women including counselling, safe houses and community education to reduce acceptance of violence.

We also work with women’s organisations to carry out research and to persuade decision makers with the power to change laws and policies to benefit women – both in the UK and internationally.

We encourage women and men to work together and to involve the wider community in order to bring about lasting change in attitudes and behaviours. We also bring partners together to share information about lessons learnt and new strategies and to use this information to inform future planning and to shape the views of decision-makers.

Read about some of the projects we are involved with which are working to tackle the problem of violence against women:

• South Africa
• Zimbabwe
• Ghana
• Ethiopia

“We must unite. Violence against women cannot be tolerated, in any form, in any context, in any circumstance, by any political leader or by any government”.

UN Secretary General – Ban Ki-Moon