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Ban Urges End to Violence Against Women |
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U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged all nations Thursday to end "the pandemic" of violence against girls and women by working to change cultural practices and attitudes that tolerate beatings, sexual attacks and other abusive acts.
The new U.N. chief said most countries have by now passed laws proscribing such violence, but too often they don't enforce them.
"It is tolerated under the fallacious cover of cultural practices and
norms, within the walls of the home," he said at the U.N. commemoration
of International Women's Day. "Or it is used as a weapon in armed
conflict, condoned through tacit silence and passivity by the state and
the law enforcement community."
General Assembly President Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, the legal
adviser to Bahrain's Royal Court and the first woman to hold the
General Assembly presidency since 1969, echoed Ban's concern about the
domestic sphere.
"Most violence against women and girls happens at home — not only
physical, but sexual and psychological violence too," she said. "To
change attitudes, to prevent and prosecute violence against women and
girls, we need to begin in the home."
Rashed said it is no longer acceptable to consider domestic violence a private matter.
"Criminal impunity must end. Every crime must be prosecuted," she said.
U.N. human rights chief Louise Arbour said "violence against women is
rightly termed the most common but least punished crime in the world."
A recent World Health Organization study of 71 countries found that 23
percent to 49 percent of women suffered violence at the hands of their
intimate partners, she said. UNICEF has reported that 130 million girls
and women have undergone genital mutilation, a practice performed
primarily in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East that is
intended to deny women sexual pleasure.
According to the U.N. Population Fund, 5,000 women die every year in
"honor killings" perpetrated by male relatives to restore family honor
after women have been raped, had affairs out of wedlock, or married
against the family's wishes.
Arbour said that according to some estimates fewer than 5 percent of
rape prosecutions lead to convictions globally, partly because the
majority of cases place emphasis on the conduct of the woman and not on
that of the perpetrators.
She added that while rape, genital mutilation spousal and domestic
abuse, stoning and burning of women and girls occasionally grab
headlines and provoke outrage, "female infanticide and systematic
neglect of girls all too frequently go unnoticed or are left
unaddressed."
"In recent years, we have seen some progress in the struggle to end the
pandemic that violence against women represents," Ban said. "We can
bring the scourge of violence against women out into the open, by
discussing it openly at the United Nations."
To loud applause, Ban encouraged the 192 U.N. member states to support
a recommendation of a high-level panel to merge the three U.N. bodies
promoting equality for women into a single well-funded organization
with higher status led by an undersecretary-general. |
