A series of news reports indicate that an assault on domestic violence is now underway in several countries at a time when UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has unveiled a renewed campaign opposing violence against women.
And then there’s today: November 25 — the International Day for the Elimination of all Forms of Violence Against Women.
In Great Britain, domestic violence is being added to the school curriculum — a move than has raised eyebrows in some quarters. The BBC reports:
The issue of domestic violence is to be added to the school timetable in England. But head teachers say schools are being asked to solve all of society’s problems.
Many campaigners say it is vital schools are used to help tackle this problem and others which can blight people’s lives.
Domestic violence is being added to the long list of topics currently taught under what is known as PSHE (Personal, Social health and economic education).
It will sit alongside drug awareness, bullying, sex education, healthy living, personal finance, body image and careers advice as topics to be covered.
There is a link between family dysfunction and domestic violence and the best way of tackling that is to make sure kids have a good education.
Some question the move:
Anastasia de Waal, director of family and education at the think-tank Civitas, says the curriculum is already too crowded and forcing schools to teach children about domestic violence is not the best way to tackle this serious problem.
“Lowering domestic violence is hugely important and I feel very strongly about that. More should be done to raise awareness so that it is seen as totally unacceptable and beyond the pale, ” she said.
“I don’t think primary school is the place to do that. I don’t think it would be effective and it risks being confusing and setting up negative relationships between boys and girls, pushing the stereotypical view of relationships between girls and boys.
Here’s an ITN news report video on the plan:
The Telegraph calls the plan a bad move that will only confuse kids:
We do not intend to downplay the issue, for no level of domestic abuse is acceptable, but this scarcely warrants an elaborate new national strategy that many would see as little more than statist social engineering, intended to usurp the role of the family.
No, the Government’s real motive lies hidden in some innocuous acronyms. In the strategy document supporting the policy, it claims that 750,000 children a year witness incidents of domestic violence, but then, rather cryptically, continues: “Girls may also be subjected to FGM, forced marriage, HBV and sexual abuse or exploitation.” FGM refers to “female genital mutilation” and HBV to “honour-based violence”. In other words, we are talking about ethnic-minority communities. And indeed, there is powerful evidence that while domestic violence occurs among all colours, creeds and social classes, it may be more prevalent and acute among ethnic-minority families.
The Government, obsessed as ever with political correctness – the new policy is, after all, part of Harriet Harman’s “equality agenda” – finds itself incapable of spelling that out, and therefore of addressing the issue properly. Refuge, the domestic violence charity, said yesterday that the “particular needs” of abused women from ethnic minority backgrounds must be addressed, while the Refugee Council said there was “nothing in this strategy” to help refugee women who are “disproportionately likely to be affected by rape and sexual violence”.
Instead of tackling a particular problem in particular communities, this misguided policy risks, in the words of one family campaigner, turning children into “confused mini-adults from the age of five to nine”.
The United Nations has launched a major campaign to oppose violence against women. The UN’s Ki-Moon says about 70% of women experience some form of physical or sexual violence from men.
AFP reports new measures underway in France and Spain:
France is to pass a law banning “psychological violence within the couple” and study the idea of tagging violent partners to prevent them stalking their victims, the government said Wednesday.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon announced the measures in a speech to mark the United Nations’ tenth International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, promising legislation in the first half of nest year.
“It’s an important step forward: the creation of this offence will allow us to deal with the most insidious situations, situations that leave no visible scars, but which leave their victims torn up inside,” he said.
“And we are going to experiment with electronic surveillance measures on the Spanish model to monitor the effectiveness of restraining orders against a violent spouse,” he added.
Spanish judges now have the power to force convicted a wife-beater to wear a watch-sized electronic bracelet that triggers an alarm if he gets too close to his former victim and gives her a chance to call the police.
Meanwhile, a report just came out in Italy indicating that one out of every three women is a victim of violence and bad treatment:
In Italy one in three women have been victims of violence and ill-treatment, the National Statistics’ Office Istat reported Wednesday on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
A total of 6,743,000 women have suffered physical or psychological violence, said the report.
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano warned against the commercial use of women in television, asking for an end to presenting “vulgar feminine images which merely serve consumer desires and are often a vehicle used by the press and the world of advertising.”
Napolitano said violence against women is a “real emergency on a global scale” and “it is essential to take concrete actions to spread a respectful concept of women.”
On the observance of the International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women yesterday, women’s groups slammed the rape and killing of women in the Maguindanao carnage.
The day that was supposed to be marked with milestones in efforts to eliminate violence against women turned into a day of indignation and grief as women’s organizations scored the gruesome Maguindanao massacre, where scores of women were not only reportedly raped but also brutally killed.
The Gabriela Women’s Party-list (GWP) denounced the election-linked mass murders in a village on the outskirts of Ampatuan town and sent its “strongest condemnation” over the alleged rape and killing of at least 20 women, including lawyer Connie Brizuela of Gabriela-Davao, who joined the convoy of Genalyn Mangudadatu early Monday going to Shariff Aguak to file the certificate of candidacy (COC) of her husband, Buluan Vice Mayor Ismael Mangudadatu when they were stopped by some 100 heavily armed men, taken hostage and then slaughtered on a remote highway in Barangay Salman.
“Gangster-ism and warlord-ism all over the country that have caused such gruesome and barbaric acts executed towards our brothers and sisters in Maguindanao, must end in the soonest possible time if we do not want to witness more violence as the election fever further heats up in the days to come,’ said Sheila Ferrer, third nominee and secretary-general of GWP in the National Capital Region.
Gabriela launched a caravan yesterday to show their indignation over continued violence against women, especially in the wake of the violent incident in Maguindanao.
A round table for local journalists titled “Sixteen days against violence against women” was held in the city of Jizzakh on 23 November.
“Legislative and Institutional Capacity Development for Women’s Empowerment in Uzbekistan”, the joint project of the Women’s Committee and UNDP in collaboration with NGO Istiqbolli Avlod, organized the event dedicated to the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, 25 November.
The round table was aimed at assisting journalists to overcome stereotypes and informing them about the launch of regional media campaign on preventing violence against women. The campaign will be held from 25 November to 10 December 2009.
Within the campaign, the UNDP project in cooperation with Istiqbolli Avlod plan to conduct trainings, meetings, seminars and discussions on such topics as “Women and Their Rights”, “Mechanisms of Women’s Rights Protection”, “Sixteen Days Against Violence”.
The competition for journalists covering life of women and their families was announced within the round table.
The media campaign is aimed at improving knowledge of the public on issues of violence against women.
Faced with a mounting death toll and calls for an urgent overhaul of the state’s fractured police, legal and social service systems, all domestic violence-related deaths are set to be reviewed by a permanent, expert panel chaired by the State Coroner, the Government is expected to announce today.
The panel will review all deaths – including cold cases – to analyse the system failures that led to the deaths and make suggestions for legislative and policy reforms to reduce the toll, the Minister for Women, Linda Burney, said last night.
”The crucial thing is that this has a legislative base … it was very much supported through the cabinet process and the ongoing funding is an indication of that support,” Ms Burney said.
The panel’s establishment follows a review of the past five years of domestic violence homicides, completed several months ago, which found many deaths had been wrongly recorded by police and had therefore never been counted as domestic violence-related.
The number of deaths to be examined in that review – 108 from January 2003 to June last year – subsequently jumped to 215 during the course of the inquiry.
Caroline Walker, writing on The Huffington Post, says in part in her post:
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Though the need for gender equality extends far beyond the past decade, the momentum over the past 10 years is finally building to a critical point where cultural change may actually become a reality. Ending injustice and eradicating violence against women and girls are prime focal points this year: we’re seeing action in new United Nations resolutions, focus on women at the Clinton Global Initiative and we’re embracing women’s rights as what New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof describes as, “the cause of our time.” He often quotes a Chinese proverb, “Women hold up half the sky.”
But what about the other half — men — the ones who most often perpetrate violence against the women? Who is reaching out to them?
During this week’s 10 year commemoration event at New York’s UN headquarters, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon announced the addition of a Network of Men Leaders to the UNite to End Violence Against Women campaign. They’re joining the ranks of grassroots organizations and international NGOs who have already recognized that engaging men in the crusade is not just an ideal — it’s essential.
More than ever, campaigns to raise awareness about the realities of violence and oppression are sprouting up, organizations are providing services for victims of abuse, and social entrepreneurs are creating financial empowerment programs so that women have economic freedom and independence.
Now, specifically, it’s time for guys to step up. And they are
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OF RELATED INTEREST:—Survey of Recent Statistics
—Facts About Violence
—Wikipedia Domestic Violence
—Violence: let’s separate the men from the boys
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.