23 November 2006 - for immediate release

Low status of women to blame for gender-based violence

Violence against women is essentially a product of gender inequality and the lesser status of women compared with men, according to the Australian Reproductive Health Alliance (ARHA).

Spokesperson for ARHA, Ms Jenny Goldie, said that the root causes of violence against women must be addressed, rather than just the symptoms.

“In countries where the status of women is low, the prevalence of violence against women is greater than in countries where their status is high,” Ms Goldie says. “Where gender roles entrench male dominance and female subordination, women are more likely to experience fear and suffer violence at the hands of men.”

Ms Goldie noted that violence against women took many forms including domestic violence, trafficking, forced prostitution, exploitation of labour, debt bondage of women and girls, deliberate neglect of girls, and rape in war.

“The level of domestic violence is alarming,” Ms Goldie says. “More than a million Australian women have experienced violence during a relationship. And in a recently released report by the World Health Organisation (WHO), rates of partner violence ranged from 15 per cent in Yokohama to 71 per cent in rural Ethiopia. The same study estimated that the level of abuse by partners to be 20-25 per cent in the European Union.”

Ms Goldie says still more work needs to be done on what puts women at risk for violence.

“In the WHO study, it was suggested that the reason for low incidence (4%) of violence in the previous 12 months, in cities like Yokohama and Belgrade, was that women could more readily leave an abusive relationship because of an independent income and the presence of shelters.”

Ms Goldie says the world community has to be very mindful that women are particularly vulnerable in conflict situations.

“Rape is often perpetrated as an act of revenge or as part of the ‘spoils of war’. It can also be an initiation ritual for soldiers, used as a method of inflicting terror or humiliation on a population, or as an assault on a culture or ethnic group.”