One in Three Women

One in Three© JOINS THE IN THE RESPONSE TO A STUDY ON GLOBAL PEACE THAT EXCLUDES VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AS ONE OF ITS TWENTY-FOUR INDICATORS OF PEACE.

There is little debate anymore about the prevalence of men’s violence against women (VAW) in the world. Gender-based violence is a worldwide epidemic and shows up in crime data as high percentages of assault crimes, rapes, and murders. Decades of research also confirms that much violence against women is not reported and many governments do not document it, and those are two important factors in tracking prevalence. Plain and simple, violence against women and the impact on women’s lives around the world are largely ignored; behaviors are tolerated and viewed as norms, and policy makers, legislators, leaders of institutions, and most men stay uniformed, often ignorant of the problem. Sadly, because of this many women internalize much abuse and stay silent for years. Thankfully, their voices are being captured more and more, and the true scope of the problem has come to light; there is more research, more improvements to systems where women seek help, and an encouraging and growing worldwide movement of men organizing against VAW.

Now we have the Global Peace Index (GPI), an index developed to measure peace. In our view, this is forward thinking, progressive, and a good direction for what should be measured, except for one ghastly oversight. There is no index, or accounting, for men’s violence against women. Recently published as “a groundbreaking milestone in the study of peace,” and using twenty-four (24) indicators, the GPI is the first-ever study to rank countries according to their level of peacefulness.

How is this possible? Peace in the world cannot truly be measured when violence perpetrated against women by men is omitted. And what does not using an undeniably epidemic level of VAW and children as a factor of measurement in this study say about how invisible this oppression actually is? In fact, we could find no mention of VAW anywhere on the GPI Web site.

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HARMFUL TRADITIONAL AND CULTURAL PRACTICES RELATED TO VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND SUCCESSFUL STRATEGIES TO ELIMINATE SUCH PRACTICES – WORKING WITH MEN

 United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) Expert Group Meeting - Strategies for Implementing the Recommendations from the Secretary-General’s Study on Violence Against Women with Particular Emphasis on the Role of National Machineries, Bangkok, Thailand, 26-27 April 2007.

 by: Dr Michael Flood
Postdoctoral Fellow
Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS)
La Trobe University

 Introduction

In this paper, I offer an overview of strategies for the primary prevention of men’s violence against women. I focus on working with men to end violence against women, and I situate this within a wider framework of violence prevention.

I begin by outlining the rationale for addressing men in efforts to prevent violence against women. I comment briefly on the category of ‘harmful traditional and cultural practices’ and other forms of violence against women. I then offer a framework identifying six key levels of intervention in violence prevention. I discuss examples of working with men in each, and I identify effective or promising strategies in work with men. The final section of the paper then explores some key challenges in working with men.

Men’s roles in preventing violence against women

Efforts to end violence against women must address men. This notion is increasingly accepted in violence prevention circles. There is a threefold rationale for engaging men (and boys) in efforts to prevent intimate partner violence. First, violence prevention must address men because, while most men do not perpetrate intimate partner violence, intimate partner violence is perpetrated largely by men. Second, constructions of masculinity play a crucial role in shaping some men’s perpetration of physical and sexual assault. Third, and more hopefully, men have a positive role to play in helping to end men’s violence against women (Flood 2005-2006).

The third element here embodies the recognition that violence is an issue of concern to women and men alike and that men have a stake in ending violence against women. Feminist work on violence against women has always recognised and hoped for the positive and non-violent roles that men can play. But this hope only recently has been translated into prevention programs and policy. Some feminist women are nervous about or opposed to men’s inclusion, for understandable reasons. Men’s participation in anti-violence work involves a delicate politics, as I have explored in detail elsewhere (Flood 2005a). Nevertheless, the inclusion of strategies aimed at men and masculinities is necessary if our prevention efforts are to be successful. More generally, there is growing international support for the belief that we must involve men in efforts to build gender equality.

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VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN MAY GO UNPUNISHED

Posted: June 11, 2007
by: Stephanie Woodard / Indian Country Today

LOWER BRULE, S.D. - On the Standing Rock Reservation, it is hoped that there will not be more than one call at a time to help victims of violence or crime.

A woman who was beaten called for a police officer, but there was only one on duty at the time. She was told an officer would be sent when available. After a few hours of waiting, the woman no longer cared to report the crime, said Georgia Little Shield, director of the Pretty Bird Woman House shelter on Standing Rock.

''I send advocates out on calls to help; it is not safe, but if we don't help, who will?'' Little Shield asked.

The problem is too few police officers, too large of an area and too little funding.

''Sixty-one women were sexually assaulted in one week on Standing Rock. When women go the city jail for help, that is desperate,'' Little Shield said.

Some women go to the city jail in McLaughlin, on Standing Rock, for protection. The jail is not affiliated with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

''We have become a lawless nation: people take the law into their own hands,'' she said.

A field hearing of the House Resources Committee was held June 1 to collect information from law enforcement, tribal leaders and from women's organizations. The final panel of the day was directed toward violence against women, the result of an Amnesty International report on the subject that recently became public.

''We have been saying this for some time, but when Amnesty International publicized the report, people started to listen,'' said Cecelia Fire Thunder, former president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and now a director at Cangleska, a battered women's shelter and program.

Police officers are trained in Albuquerque, N.M., but Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin suggested training officers at a new facility in Pierre.

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