Amnesty Rally : Violence Against Women

Violence against women as an issue of International Human Rights

First of all can I thank the local Amnesty group for the invitation to speak at what is now a yearly event highlighting the global campaigns of the organisation. I think it is appropriate that we also pay tribute here today to the founder of AMNESTY International Peter Benenson who began a year long campaign in 1961 for the release of six prisoners of conscience which grew into a worldwide movement for human rights. And there can be no greater human rights cause than to seek an end to the practice of violence against women.

‘ violence against women is perhaps the most shameful human rights violation, and it is perhaps the most pervasive. It knows no boundaries of geography , culture or wealth. As long as it continues , we cannot claim to be making real progress towards equality, development and peace’.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan

But what sums up for me the abuse of power which characterises violence against women are the words of Mahatma Ghandi

‘ It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings.’

Violence affects the lives of millions of women worldwide, in all socio economic and educational classes. It cuts across cultural and religious barriers, impeding the right of women to participate fully in society. It takes many forms including domestic abuse, rape, female genital mutilation, son preference, dowry related and early marriage, sexual assault within marriage, prostitution and trafficking , violence against migrant workers, pornography, violence perpetrated or condoned by states and in situations of armed conflict to name just some of the wide range of ways in which women are routinely abused throughout the world.

Yet the alarming global dimensions of female targeted violence were not explicitly acknowledged by the international community until December 1993 when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women.

That Declaration was the first international human rights instrument to exclusively and explicitly address the issue. It affirmed that violence against women violates, impairs or nullifies women’s human rights and their exercise of fundamental freedoms. And it provides a definition of gender based abuse calling it ‘any act of gender based violence that results in or is likely to result 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.‘

So it occurs within the family – they say charity begins at home but so does violence against women.
It occurs within the general community
And it is condoned and perpetrated by States.

The fact that it has been socially sanctioned for so long by states, or at best swept under the carpet by those in authority including the religious leaders is what has allowed it to flourish and fulfil the fundamental purpose of keeping women in their place. And that includes our own country where until comparatively recently a man could legally beat his wife with a stick as long as it was no thicker than his thumb and women did not have the vote.

So it is important that the powers that be are now increasingly acknowledging violence against women as unacceptable behaviour. But make no mistake about it the reason this issue is now further up the political agenda is due to the action of women themselves who said ‘enough is enough’ and organised what was known as the refuge movement or the battered women’s movement- one of the biggest social movements that ever fought for social change on a world wide basis and continues to this day.

In the UK Women’s Aid has been at the forefront of this struggle for over thirty years, including here in Ayrshire where we have three local groups one for each council area. I was privileged to be part of that organisation until I went to Westminster in 1997.

I remember being in this very hall twenty years ago at a Council meeting where we protested for a refuge with placards saying ‘ Battered women Need Refuges’

There are now refuges throughout Ayrshire and it is hard to believe that back then many people were against us. I remember being on West Sound Radio with Lou Grant being interviewed on Child Sex Abuse. His opening question to me was ‘ Tell me something about yourself ! What does your husband do Sandra?’ And we actually got someone phoning in to say ‘ Yes it is a terrible problem but it doesn’t happen in Ayr – maybe in the likes of Glasgow. Thousands of women and children have been through the refuge in Ayr since that time and it was always a struggle for resources, a struggle to get acceptance of the problem not least from the Police and a struggle to help women escape persistently violent men who sapped their spirit and destroyed their self esteem.

So what progress has been made? Only a few weeks ago I visited my friends in Kilmarnock Women’s Aid where I used to work to see their new offices and Women’s Centre and also their new refuge- the refuge has self contained flats with en-suite amenities – in other words privacy. Often refuges up and down the country were very basic to say the least and more often that not overcrowded. All of the agencies are now working together and I have witnessed a sea change in attitude from the Police A tremendous amount of work is going on in training and prevention not least through the work South Ayrshire Women’s Aid have been doing in schools. So we’ve much to be pleased about except that the problem continues.. The Police never used to keep statistics on domestic violence but now they do. And they show that from 1st January to 31st December 2004 there were 3223 recorded incidents of domestic violence in Ayrshire and 43,678 in Scotland. Of course that is only where Police were involved – many women still do not report it.

Since 2000 we have had a national strategy to deal with domestic abuse encompassing protection, prevention and provision and the Scottish Executive are putting their money where their mouth is. To think that in 1998 I took part in the first ever debate on violence against women on the floor of the House of Commons.

We are making progress but that does not mean the essential causes and consequences of violence against women are any different here from the rest of the world. I think we have to be very clear about that.

I referred earlier to the UN and I would just like to mention briefly the global campaign which Amnesty is supporting. On 25th November UN International Day Against Violence Against Women takes place and White Ribbon Day is used to put the issue under the spotlight all over the word. It is about breaking the silence. Wearing a white ribbon says:
‘ I will not commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women. ‘

Amnesty is putting that into practice with this campaign and has highlighted a number of cases worldwide where action can be taken on individual cases as Amnesty is so good at doing.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo where rape and sexual violence was used as weapon of war against Kavira Muraulu and she was murdered when she complained. A place I have personal knowledge of Columbia where for forty years women’s bodies have been used as a battleground by all sides in the armed conflict.

Women bear the brunt of house demolitions by Israel in the Occupied Territories- 4000 homes in the last four years, women abducted in Iraq, a campaigner for Women’s Rights in Iran arrested and detained to name but a few.

This week the UN Annual Population Fund Report recognised that the UN Development Goals to eradicate extreme poverty by 2015 cannot be achieved without much greater efforts to give women equality It calls for government action to free women from the poverty and ignorance forced on them by cultural confines in many countries- it recognises that this has an economic as well as a social toll. It was quite clearly stated:
‘ We cannot make poverty history until we stop violence against women and girls. We can’t Make Poverty History until women enjoy their full social, cultural, economic and political rights’

It is not easy for women to resist violence when they have been brainwashed and brought up often to believe it is a man’s right to control her. In Zambia, Cambodia India and Nicaragua a disturbingly high % of women themselves believe wife beating is justified for at least one reason. In Egypt the survey showed this to be the case with over 90% of women. And the reasons they cite as justifying this – neglecting the children, going out without telling partner, arguing with partner, refusing to have sex, not preparing food properly/ on time and talking to other men – yes ‘talking’ to other men. But before we smugly condemn such societies let me tell you, in my sixteen years with Women’s Aid in Kilmarnock I heard these very same reasons a thousand times over. Except they are not reasons – they are excuses.

Let me end with the story of Rania al-Baz – you may have followed her story in the newspapers. Rania was an iconic figure in Saudi Arabia – a young and vivacious TV presenter resented by the dogmatic religious establishment – that was until she was nearly beaten to death by her husband for being on the phone when he came home one night. Rania shocked her country by publishing photographs of herself after being beaten. She shattered a wall of silence about the prevalence of Saudi domestic violence by making a stand in public. She has since dropped the charges and worried about her young family she has fled to Paris. But she hasn’t given up – speaking from Paris she was reported as saying ‘In the end I may lose my own fight – but at least I did not accept things the way they are’

We should not accept things the way they are either –

For the sake of the thousands of women who have passed through the Ayrshire refuges
For the sake of the 40,000 plus who reported incidents of domestic violence in Scotland last year
For the sake of the raped women of the Congo
The women whose homes have been destroyed in the Palestinian occupied territories
For the sake of the 9 out of every ten women in Egypt who have been conditioned into thinking that wife beating is OK
For Rania al-Baz and the women of Saudi Arabia

We should not accept things the way they are
On 25th November- UN International Day Against Violence Against Women and on every other day, we should proclaim in a voice that breaks the silence world wide -
‘ I will not commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women. ‘