One in three women has experienced physical or sexual violence. With contributions from Africa, Asia and Latin America, we tell the story of how this pandemic affects every corner of the world. One in three women has experienced physical or sexual violence. With contributions from Africa, Asia and Latin America, we look at how this hidden pandemic affects every corner of the globe.
On 11 May, the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence turns ten. The Council of Europe treaty is the most far-reaching binding international instrument for addressing this serious form of human rights violation. Gender-based violence is a scourge that affects every country and every region of the world, including Italy, Turkey and, as we shall see, Africa, South Asia and Latin America.
One in three women worldwide has been a victim of physical or sexual violence, according to the World Health Organization. This situation has been made worse by the coronavirus pandemic: the burden of the economic crisis and the restrictions that forced many people to remain at home for extended periods has been felt by women across the world. The situation is so alarming that UN Women, the United Nations entity that fights for gender equality and the empowerment of women, launched the Shadow pandemic campaign to highlight the rise in domestic violence at a global level.
by Mike Mwenda from Lusaka, Zambia
Gender-based violence is a deep-rooted problem that affects the lives of millions of African women, girls and children. The phenomenon is widespread and manifests in many forms, including early marriage, domestic violence, female genital mutilation, honour killings and human trafficking.
To understand the origins of the problem, it is essential to recognise the harmful gender stereotypes embedded in African societies and cultures — such as the idea that women must always submit to men, or that a man who beats his partner does so because he loves her. This mindset is particularly common in countries such as Madagascar, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, among others.
The lockdowns imposed by several African countries to curb the spread of Covid-19 led to a rise in cases of rape, cruelty and violence against women and girls trapped at home with abusive family members, with no possibility of reporting them or escaping danger. Women who suffered under these circumstances found it difficult to report the abuse because the organisations working to provide them with protection and support were often classified as "non-essential" services. Due to the severe restrictions, these NGOs were unable to report the violence to the police or file petitions in court.
A particularly horrific episode that took place in South Africa during the coronavirus pandemic was the murder of 28-year-old Tshegofatso Pule, whose body was found hanging from a tree when she was eight months pregnant. Her boyfriend Ntuthuko Shoba was accused of having planned the murder, and the case sparked several protests among human rights groups across the country. A man identified as Mzikayise Malephane recently appeared before a Johannesburg court and was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to Pule's murder. A document read by his lawyer states that the 31-year-old had been offered 7,000 rand (400 euros) by Shoba, the victim's boyfriend, to carry out the killing, but Malephane had initially refused. When he was subsequently offered 7,000 rand (4,000 euros), he accepted.
In another case, a two-year-old girl was allegedly raped in South Africa while she was in hospital in a coronavirus isolation ward. According to reports, her mother had taken her to hospital when she began showing the first symptoms of Covid-19 and had been told that her daughter needed to be placed in isolation.
Furthermore, more than 4,000 minors became pregnant during the lockdown period in Kenya, according to the government. Since the start of the pandemic, health workers in the East African country had warned of the risk of a rise in teenage pregnancy rates. Movement restrictions made it harder for girls to access contraceptives and family planning services. In addition, the mandatory curfew trapped girls in their homes with abusive family members and neighbours.
Across the African continent there are many obstacles to justice for survivors of gender-based violence. Chief among them are a lack of trust in judicial systems and the secondary victimisation that women often suffer at the hands of the police and health services when they attempt to report attacks.
It is time for African governments to strengthen their institutions — including the police, which stands accused of turning away complaints on many occasions on the grounds that they are family matters rather than crimes. The voices of women must be respected on this continent, as in the rest of the world.
by Gurvinder Singh from Kolkata, India
A patriarchal society combined with an inflexible culture and centuries-old traditions have kept the women of South Asia subordinate to the men in their families since time immemorial. The borders drawn by human beings have given well-defined names and identities to the nations of South Asia, but they have not changed the fate of the women who live there, who continue to suffer terrifying levels of violence, sexual abuse, murder and honour killings in these countries.
Women who report violence and abuse and seek justice often find themselves facing exhausting legal proceedings that drag on for many years. A classic example of justice delayed is the case of the gang rape of a woman on a bus in Delhi, the capital of India, in December 2012.
The case drew worldwide attention because of its brutality. So savage was the violence of the six men that the victim, nicknamed Nirbhaya, meaning "fearless", lost her life. After an endless series of appeals and protests by the media and civil society, four of the accused were sentenced to death and hanged in 2020, eight years after the brutal rape, while one of the defendants was released because he was a minor at the time of the crime. The sixth attacker took his own life in prison.
"Nirbhaya got justice because the brutality of the crime triggered a strong national reaction, but I am opposed to capital punishment as I do not consider it the right solution," says Aparajita Ganguly, a social worker from Calcutta who spent thirteen years in prison after being falsely implicated in her husband's murder. "The poor do not get justice and cases often fail to reach their most logical conclusion. Dowry murders are frequently passed off as 'mysterious' deaths. Harassment and the absence of justice are not a specifically Indian problem: the same story repeats itself in other countries in the region."
In 2019, an average of 87 rape cases per day were recorded in India, and crimes against women rose by 7 per cent compared to 2018, according to a report by the National Crime Records Bureau published in September of last year. And women continue to suffer harassment and torture in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Afghanistan too. "South Asia has the highest rate of child marriage in the world; in this region, 46 per cent of girls are already married before the age of 18," according to a World Bank report from 2014.
Honour killings are common in India, where women are murdered simply for choosing whom to marry, going against arranged marriages. Equally shocking are images of women killed in Afghanistan for having tried to challenge rigid social customs. The stories of girls kidnapped, raped and murdered in Pakistan bring shame upon all of humanity.
Lockdowns brought further suffering for women in South Asia, as many of them found themselves unwillingly caught in the crossfire of the anger of partners and family members who had lost their income or livelihoods as a result of the economic crisis.
"We already have strong laws to punish crimes against women; what is lacking is the will to prosecute those responsible," stresses Soumitra Karmakar Chakraborty, a women's rights activist in India. "To ensure swift judicial proceedings, there should be dedicated tribunals for cases involving women. Timely action by the justice system can stop people from committing such crimes. Women should come forward and speak about their oppression without fear, otherwise their fate will not change."
by Lise Hermann from Quito, Ecuador
Latin America is the region with the highest rate of sexual violence in the world, according to Undp (the United Nations Development Programme). Furthermore, United Nations data highlight how in Argentina, Mexico, Colombia and other countries in the region, domestic violence against women has increased dramatically during the pandemic, with peaks reaching 50 per cent in some nations. In El Salvador, an increase of as much as 70 per cent in reports of gender-based violence was recorded.
In the city of Riberalta, in the Bolivian Amazon, near the border with Brazil, 31-year-old Maria (whose surname is not disclosed for her protection) is part of a group of single mothers. Many of the women in the group came together after leaving their partners, often the fathers of their children, due to domestic violence. This is the rule rather than the exception here, the women emphasise. Maria recalls her violent relationship with the father of her four children and the physical and psychological abuse she suffered. On some occasions, she had to go to hospital as a result of the beatings. Once, the violence was so severe that it caused her to have a transient ischaemic attack. "And he made me believe that all of this was my fault. That is why I stayed with him for so long," says Maria.
In neighbouring Peru, an alarming number of girls and women — almost 12,000 — went missing last year. And unfortunately the situation in the country reflects what is happening across Latin America as a whole.
"The disappearance of so many women