NEW FILM SERIES TAKES ON CULTURE
OF SILENCE ON
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
First Global Broadcast
— Women on the Frontline — Presented
by Annie Lennox
on BBC World, Tomorrow, 18
April 2008 at 1930 GMT
United Nations, Geneva, 17 April 2008 — This
is an unfortunate anniversary.
Fourteen years ago, in April 1994, news got out
that ethnic violence in Kigali was spreading throughout
Rwanda. Since then, the world community has struggled
to explain how the genocide of 800,000 people happened
in full view, but less discussed is the ongoing
impact of the rape and other forms of sexual violence
committed against hundreds of thousands of women.
Violence against women is the theme of Women
on the Frontline, a series of seven films
being broadcast for the first time tomorrow
Friday night by BBC World at 1930 GMT to about
300 million households to help peel away the
silence surrounding the brutality of gender-based
violence that crosses all borders.
“Violence against women threatens the lives
of more young women than cancer, malaria or war,” said
Annie Lennox, the British singer who presents the
series of investigative reports. “It affects
one in three women worldwide. It leaves women mentally
scarred for life, and it is usually inflicted by
a family member.”
Unfortunately, when it comes to war, the use of
rape as a weapon continues.
- In Rwanda, according to the Geneva
Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed
Forces, up to half a million women were raped
during the 1994 genocide.
- In Sierra Leone, a
reported 50,000-64,000 internally displaced
women have experienced sexual violence at the
hands of armed combatants.
- In a recent survey,
more than half of all women in Lofa County
in northern Liberia experienced at least one
incident of sexual violence during the 1999-2003
conflict. While 90 percent of these women experienced
at least one incident of physical violence
and almost half of the women reported more than
four instances in which they were required to
have sex for favours.
- During the current post-election
conflict in Kenya, which has killed over 1,000
people and displaced more than 200,000, the
Nairobi Women’s
Hospital and the Coast General Hospital in
Mombasa reported a two- to threefold increase
over the previous year in the number of women
and children seeking treatment for sexual assault,
especially gang rapes by men.
“Even where there is no war, women’s
bodies continue to be battlegrounds,” said
Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, the Executive Director of UNFPA,
the United Nations Population Fund. “Women
and girls are at risk of violence when carrying
out essential daily activities — within their
homes, or while walking, taking public transport
to work, collecting water or firewood. Demanding
the end of violence against women is about protecting
human rights and ensuring that women live in safety
and dignity.”
According to UN figures, at least one in every
three women worldwide is likely to be beaten, coerced
into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime, and
one in five women will become a victim of rape or
attempted rape. Trafficking, sexual harassment,
female genital mutilation, dowry murder, “honour” killings
and female infanticide are also part of the problem.
“The gaps in addressing violence against
women are in terms of political will, resources
and the strong involvement of men and boys in insisting
on zero tolerance. If we can’t put an end
to the pandemic of violence against women, we can’t
achieve any of the other agreed goals: development,
equality or peace,” said Joanne Sandler, acting
Executive Director of the United Nations Development
Fund for Women (UNIFEM).
The UN Secretary-General has acknowledged the depth
of the problem by launching a multi-year campaign
eight weeks ago to eliminate violence against women
and girls. Throughout the UN, a number of agencies
are involved in various aspects of fighting violence
against women.
In Mauritania, as shown on Women
on the Frontline,
women should not have boyfriends. If women are raped,
they are considered at fault and imprisoned.
“We found girls who said they had been raped
and who were being sent to prison for the simple
reason that there was no tangible proof of this
violence,” said Zeinabou Mint Taleb Moussa,
a lawyer who heads the Mauritanian Association for
Maternal and Child Health. “I would prefer
them to go through the justice system or even better,
I would prefer that the boys are arrested and the
girls are recognized as victims.”
Women on the Frontline highlights the
violence women must still endure in their daily
lives and how they cope with it. The seven countries
featured are Austria, Colombia, Democratic Republic
of the Congo (DRC), Mauritania, Morocco, Nepal
and Turkey.
A number of UN agencies, including UNFPA and UNIFEM,
donor countries such as Austria, non-governmental
organizations and other partners provided information
and support for the investigative reports.
“On the Frontline has gone behind the lines
with rebels and filmed among violent street gangs
but this time we’ve taken the frontline mostly
into the home, where even after 20 years in production,
I’m still shocked to see how many obstacles
lie between women and equality, and the violence
they must still endure,” said Robert Lamb,
Executive Director of the series.
The seven films cover Nepal, where thousands of
women are trafficked each year; Turkey, where killing
in the name of honour continues; Morocco, where
women political activists who have survived torture
and imprisonment testify before a government truth
and reconciliation commission; the DRC, where women
bear the brunt of a 10-year war in the eastern provinces;
Colombia, where women have been tortured in the
shadow of a guerilla war; Mauritania, where women
who have been raped may go to prison; and Austria,
where, under a new law, perpetrators of domestic
violence are forced to leave home.
For more information, see the series
brochure. Consult the broadcast schedules
on dev.tv and BBC
World.
UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is an
international development agency that promotes the
right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life
of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports
countries in using population data for policies
and programmes to reduce poverty and to ensure that
every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe,
every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every
girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.
UNIFEM is
the women’s fund at the United
Nations. It provides financial and technical assistance
to innovative programmes and strategies to foster
women’s empowerment and gender equality. Placing
the advancement of women’s human rights at
the centre of all of its efforts, UNIFEM focuses
its activities on reducing feminized poverty;
ending violence against women; reversing the spread
of HIV/AIDS among women and girls; and achieving
gender equality in democratic governance in times
of peace as well as war.
dev.tv is a non-profit association founded by media
professionals. Its goal is to promote the production
and distribution of television coverage of issues
related to human, economic and environmental crises.
dev.tv aims to draw public attention to the problems
of our times, and highlight efforts to find solutions.
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