Internationale vrouwendag

Vandaag op 8 maart is het wereldvrouwendag. Dit jaar staat deze dag in het teken van geweld tegen vrouwen en meisjes. Wie op het net een beetje rondsurft vindt vanalles terug over wereldvrouwendag, het hoe? het wat? het waarom? En het lijkt misschien gek, maar ook ons landje is er nog heel wat werk aan de winkel. De thema's zijn iets verschillend, het zit allemaal een beetje meer verstopt, maar als je de grote lijnen bekijkt dan gaat het allemaal omhetzelfde.

International Women's Day 2007

Take action to end impunity for violence against women and girls

Violence against women is the most common but least punished crime in the world.

It is estimated that between 113 million and 200 million women are demographically "missing." They have been the victims of infanticide (boys are preferred to girls) or have not received the same amount of food and medical attention as their brothers and fathers.

The number of women forced or sold into prostitution is estimated worldwide at anywhere between 700,000 and 4,000,000 per year. Profits from sex slavery are estimated at seven to twelve billion US dollars per year.

Globally, women between the age of fifteen and forty-four are more likely to be maimed or die as a result of male violence than through cancer, malaria, traffic accidents or war combined.

At least one out of every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime. Usually, the abuser is a member of her own family or someone known to her. Domestic violence is the largest form of abuse of women worldwide, irrespective of region, culture, ethnicity, education, class and religion.

It is estimated that more than two million girls are genitally mutilated per year, a rate of one girl every fifteen seconds.

Systematic rape is used as a weapon of terror in many of the world's conflicts. It is estimated that between 250,000 and 500,000 women in Rwanda were raped during the 1994 genocide.

Studies show the increasing links between violence against women and HIV and demonstrate that HIV-infected women are more likely to have experienced violence, and that victims of violence are at higher risk of HIV infection.

Figures taken from:
Secretary-General's in-depth study on violence against women (2006)
(A/61/122/Add.1) Vlachovà, Marie and Biason, Lea, Eds. (2004) Women in an
Insecure World: Violence Against Women - Facts, Figures and Analysis.
Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces