DEAR FRIENDS AND WATCHERS.....

I AM DOING AN UPDATE ON THIS JOURNAL, TODAY 17th JULY, AS I HAVE HAD A NUMBER OF EXCHANGES IN PRIVATE AND THE GENERAL OPINION IS THAT THIS ISSUE SHOULD BE CONTINUED HERE WITH SOME UPDATES AS THEY BECOME AVAILABLE.

THANK YOU JO FOR ALLOWING ME TO PUBLISH YOUR WORK IN CONNECTION WITH THIS ISSUE...

AS PER JO'S WORDS ...

" It took me many years to be comfortable with making an art piece, but I did it   and I also Lecture to Deaf and Hard of Hearing Women, medical and legal  staff and Interpreters for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing on this very subject."

THANK YOU CHER FOR ALLOWING ME TO PUBLISH YOUR PIECE OF WORK AS WELL...

:thumb172302766:

THANK YOU FOR SHARING WITH US YOUR STORY OF RAPE AND VIOLENCE

"I am a survivor of rape and violence from men. It took me years to move from "victim" to "survivor". The whole stigma of it being a woman's fault has left me angry, and now I speak my voice and share my story openly. The hush-hush around the topic of rape and the fact it makes so many uncomfortable makes me even angrier. It's why so many people get away with it. Then there's the artwork of women getting raped and people  saying it's a fetish.

Here's my artwork and story: [link] ..."

I WOULD LIKE TO INTRODUCE A LOVELY LADY  -

JULIE HAS HER OWN STORY OF ABUSE BEHIND HER AND SHE IS DOING HER DOCTORATE NOW IN CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE.

AS PER JULIE'S WORDS...

"I will do everything that I can to help anyone. The most important thing  to mention is that if PEOPLE feel they are need of immediate assistance to call their local hotline/crisis center or the police. "

JULIE HAS GIVEN ME THE FOLLOWING RATHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION -

this is a list of good places on the web for assistance;

The wonderful people at RAINN.org have a list of international resources for victims [link]

[link]

RAINN.org also offers an online help line that is safe and confidential 24/7 on their website.  Their toll free phone number in the US is 1-800-656-HOPE.

Another good international list of resources can be found at VAOnline.org [link]

GROUPS JULIE BELONGS TO

OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS ABOUT WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE WORLD RIGHT NOW....

A few days ago, a woman in Afghanistan was merely accused of adultery and was executed in the street with the Taliban cheering on her murderer.

One of the women protesting was killed, unfortunately.  These women have the strength of a million souls...if they can do it...why can't we?

[link]

[link]

Additionally, right now in England, there is a trial beginning that I believe every country needs to adopt if it should become law.  The right for any female to question the police about a man's past arrests or encounters with the authorities/police for domestic violence or sexual assault.

[link] .

TURKEY

Number of Women Murders Increased by 1400 Percent

The number of women murders in Turkey increased by 1,400 percent within seven years. As far as divorce cases are concerned, 85 percent of all applications in Istanbul are related to violence.

The number of women murders in Turkey increased by factor 14 within a period of seven years. While 66 women were murdered in 2002, this figure rocketed to 953 women murders in 2009.

This development made the headlines in the Turkish Press on Thursday (15 September). The figures are based on data issued by lawyer Aydeniz Alisbah Tuskan, Co-ordinator of the Istanbul Bar Association Centre for Women's Rights. The data revealed an additional startling dimension of the problem: 85 percent of about 2000 annually registered divorce applications in Istanbul are based on violence.

About 300 women applied to the Istanbul Bar Association for protection during the past year. Other applications were concerned with alimony, child custody or family residence for example.

According to lawyer Tuskan, the reason for this explosion in the number of applications based on violence is the fact that women do not endure violence as they used to do in the past.

GUATEMALA

Since 2008, Guatemala has “feminicide” on its law books: the murder of women simply because of their sex or out of hatred for their sex. According to Walda Barrios-Klee, a Guatemalan activist, “We consider feminicides to be impersonal crimes. Those who kill a woman have no relationship to her. It is an anonymous crime. The one who kills does not know the victim and kills her because of the fact that she is a woman. This is what is new about the phenomenon,” said Barrios-Klee.

Another distinction of these murders is in the brutality employed before and after the death of the victims. “There is not only a killing; there is a ritual to the murder: torture, mutilation, and rape. There is always rape, accompanied by overwhelming sadism,” said the activist. Bodies are frequently dismembered; fingernails are torn out and faces disfigured.  

Barrios-Klee lamented that following the enactment of the feminicide law, the number of murdered women has actually increased. The law, according to Barrios-Klee, “has served to increase the number of reports since women are beginning to fear less,” even while the prosecution of the crimes has not increased. For Barrios-Klee, Guatemala’s law enforcement and justice system is at fault. The feminicide law “is a contribution towards cultural change. However, if the system of justice does not work well, even if there is a law, things will not change very much,” said the activist.

INDIA

Indian women face a barrage of threats, say activists, despite impressive economic growth over the last two decades that has promoted gender equality and brought in better laws to protect women and girls.

According to the U.N. Population Fund, around 5,000 women are victims of "honour" killings worldwide every year, while India's National Crimes Record Bureau says 8,391 brides - one every hour - were murdered over dowry-related issues in 2010.

Dowries - such as jewellery, clothes, cars and money - are traditionally given by the bride's family to the groom and his parents to ensure she is taken care of in her new home.

The custom is banned, but still widely practiced, with the groom's family sometimes demanding even more money after marriage, which can lead to mental and physical harassment that can drive the woman to suicide. Often she is burnt alive in so-called "stove burnings" where kerosene is poured over her and she is set alight.

THE WORLD

Facts & Figures on VAW

The Violence against Women Prevalence Data: Surveys by Country [ en | es | fr ] . Compiled by UN Women in 2011, presents data available for 86 countries on the prevalence of physical and sexual violence against women, forced sexual initiation and abuse during pregnancy, mainly drawn from leading international surveys, including: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Reproductive Health Surveys, Demographic and Health Surveys, Violence Against Women Surveys and the World Health Organization Multi-Country Study.

Violence against women and girls is a problem of pandemic proportions. Based on country data available, up to 70 percent of women experience physical or sexual violence from men in their lifetime — the majority by husbands, intimate partners or someone they know.

Among women aged between 15 and 44, acts of violence cause more death and disability than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war combined. Perhaps the most pervasive human rights violation that we know today, violence against women devastates lives, fractures communities, and stalls development.

It takes many forms and occurs in many places — domestic violence in the home, sexual abuse of girls in schools, sexual harassment at work, rape by husbands or strangers, in refugee camps or as a tactic of war.

Femicide

• In the United States, one-third
       of women murdered each year are killed by intimate partners.
• In South Africa, a woman is
       killed every 6 hours by an intimate partner.
• In India, 22 women were
       killed each day in dowry-related murders in 2007.
• In Guatemala, two women are
       murdered, on average, each day.

Trafficking

• Women and girls comprise 80
       percent of the estimated 800,000 people trafficked annually, with the
       majority (79 percent) trafficked for sexual exploitation.

Harmful Practices

• Approximately 100 to 140
       million girls and women in the world have experienced female genital
       mutilation/cutting, with more than 3 million girls in Africa annually at risk
       of the practice.
• More than 60 million girls
       worldwide are child brides, married before the age of 18, primarily in South Asia (31.1 million
       and Sub-Saharan Africa
       (14.1 million).

Sexual Violence against Women and Girls

• An estimated 150 million
       girls under 18 suffered some form of sexual violence in 2002 alone.
• As many as 1 in 4 women
       experience physical and/or sexual violence during pregnancy which
       increases the likelihood of having a miscarriage, still birth and
       abortion.
• Up to 53 percent of women
       physically abused by their intimate partners are being kicked or punched
       in the abdomen.
• In Sao Paulo, Brazil, a
       woman is assaulted every 15 seconds.
• In Ecuador, adolescent girls
       reporting sexual violence in school identified teachers as the perpetrator
       in 37 percent of cases.

Rape as a method of warfare

• Approximately 250,000 to
       500,000 women and girls were raped in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
• In eastern Democratic Republic of Congo,
       at least 200,000 cases of sexual violence, mostly involving women and
       girls, have been documented since 1996, though the actual numbers are
       considered to be much higher.

Sexual Harassment

• Between 40 and 50 percent of
       women in European Union
       countries experience unwanted sexual advancements, physical contact or
       other forms of sexual harassment at their workplace.
• In the United States, 83
       percent of girls aged 12 to 16 experienced some form of sexual harassment
       in public schools.

THANKS SO MUCH ONCE AGAIN FOR YOUR ATTENTION......

AS YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED, I AM NOT ANSWERING YOUR COMMENTS JUST YET, BECAUSE THERE MAY BE SOME MORE NEWS THAT YOU MAY WISH TO COMMENT UPON.

I AM VERY GRATEFUL TO ALL OF YOU WHO ARE PARTICIPATING, AS THIS IS A VERY ALIVE AND URGENT SUBJECT...

JOURNAL STARTED HERE ON THE 16TH JULY 2012

I HAVE JUST ARRIVED AND SHOULD PROBABLY NOT START BURDENING YOU WITH HEAVY STUFF...

BUT... I FOUND MYSELF CONFRONTED WITH A FEW SITUATIONS.... AND I FELT I HAD TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT THEM....

(ACTUALLY... MORE THAN A FEW TO BE QUITE HONEST....)

ONE OF THEM IS ACTUALLY STILL TAKING PLACE WITH A DEAR FRIEND OF MINE AND MY SISTER’S AND THEREFORE HAPPENING IN MY COUNTRY... THIS FRIEND WAS BEATEN UP AND RAPED BY HER BOY FRIEND AND WAS ALREADY TOO FRAGILE TO REACT... PATRICIA MY SISTER HELPED HER WITH GOING TO THE POLICE TO FILE A REPORT, ALTHOUGH SHE WAS PETRIFIED TO DO SO, BECAUSE OF HIS REACTION. SHE HAS BEEN SEEN BY A SPECIAL POLICE DEPARTMENT AND IS GOING TO SEE A POLICE DEPARTMENT GYNECOLOGIST TOMORROW, SO THAT A FULL REPORT IS DONE.

A COUPLE OF OTHER CASES, I GOT TO FIND OUT ABOUT THROUGH PRIVATE NOTES FROM DA FELLOW ARTISTS, ASKING FOR SOME HELP AND ADVICE, BUT THAT IS OF COURSE CONFIDENTIAL.... BUT I MUST ADMIT I WAS IN TOTAL SHOCK AT THE NEWS, AND BEING NO EXPERT IN SUCH MATTERS... AND ALSO BEARING IN MIND THEY ARE NOT IN MY COUNTRY, I CAN ONLY HELP VERY LITTLE... AS MOSTLY THEY ARE EXTREMELY WORRIED ABOUT "WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF THEY FILE A REPORT"...

UNFORTUNATELY I HAVE TO SAY AT LEAST IN TWO OF THE CASES, THEIR NEIGHBOURS AND FAMILY KNOW ABOUT THE SITUATION, BUT PREFER TO IGNORE IT, AS THEY ARE ASHAMED OF THE WHOLE SITUATION... WHICH IS SOMETHING I JUST CANNOT EVEN START TO BELIEVE.... ARE PEOPLE STUPID, MAD, INHUMAN OR WHAT....?????!!!!!!

WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO IF, INSTEAD OF HELPING IMMEDIATELY, PEOPLE JUST IGNORE WHAT IS HAPPENING TO OTHER HUMAN BEINGS AROUND THEM .?????? I AM FLABBERGASTED AND COULD START WORLD WAR III RIGHT NOW... BELIEVE ME.....

ALSO, MY FRIEND JOCELYNE HAS POSTED ON HER PROFILE PAGE AN ITEM CALLED

R.I.P.

Requiescant In Pacem

July 5th 2012

On Thursday morning, July 5th 2012, Catherine, a lovely young woman, has
been

stabbed to death by her husband, in front of her young children.

Her family and friends are invaded by deep feelings of disbelief, anger,
incommensurable

sadness. All we are able to do is to cry...

Will violence against women end? Will it ever end?

I SPOKE TO JOCELYNE, AND SHE DID AGREE THAT  ANOTHER JOURNAL ON VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN SHOULD BE WRITTEN....

I AM WELL AWARE THIS IS A HEAVY SUBJECT AND IN FACT WHAT I PRESENT HERE IS FAIRLY LONG. BUT I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE OF USE FOR US ALL TO KNOW SOME OF THE REAL FACTS HAPPENING AROUND THE WORLD.....

UNITED  NATIONS  ENTITY  FOR  GENDER EQUALITY

Introduction

The United Nations defines violence against women as 'any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.'

Intimate partner violence refers to behaviour in an intimate relationship that causes physical, sexual or psychological harm, including physical aggression, sexual coercion, psychological abuse and controlling behaviours.

Sexual violence is any sexual act, attempt to obtain a sexual act, unwanted sexual comments or advances, or acts to traffic, or otherwise directed against a person’s sexuality using coercion, by any person regardless of their relationship to the victim, in any setting. It includes rape, defined as the physically forced or otherwise coerced penetration of the vulva or anus with a penis, other body part or object.

Fast facts: statistics on violence against women and girls

Between 15 and 76 percent of women are targeted for physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime, according to the available country data. Most of this violence takes place within intimate relationships, with many women (ranging from 9 to 70 percent) reporting their husbands or partners as the perpetrator.

Femicide

In Guatemala, two women are murdered, on average, each day.

In India, 8,093 cases of dowry-related death were reported in 2007; an unknown number of murders of women and young girls were falsely labeled ‘suicides’ or ‘accidents’.

In Australia, Canada, Israel, South Africa and the United States, between 40 and 70 percent of female murder victims were killed by their intimate partners.

In the State of Chihuahua, Mexico, 66 percent of murders of women were committed by husbands, boyfriends or other family members.

Violence and
Young Women

Worldwide, up to 50 percent of sexual assaults are committed against girls under 16.

An estimated 150 million girls under the age of 18 suffered some form of sexual violence in 2002 alone.

The first sexual experience of some 30 percent of women was forced. The percentage is even higher among those who were under 15 at the time of their sexual initiation, with up to 45 percent reporting that the experience was forced.

Harmful Practices

Approximately 100 to 140 million girls and women in the world have experienced female genital mutilation/cutting, with more than 3 million girls in Africa annually at risk of the practice.

Over 60 million girls worldwide are child brides, married before the age of 18, primarily in South Asia (31.3 million) and sub-Saharan Africa (14.1 million). Violence and abuse characterize married life for many of these girls. Women who marry early are more likely to be beaten or threatened, and more likely to believe that a husband might sometimes be justified in beating his wife.

Trafficking

Women and girls are 80 percent of the estimated 800,000 people trafficked across national borders annually, with the majority (79 percent) trafficked for sexual exploitation. Within countries, many more women and girls are trafficked, often for purposes of sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

One study in Europe found that 60 percent of trafficked women had experienced physical and/or sexual violence before being trafficked, pointing to gender-based violence as a push factor in the trafficking of women.

Sexual
Harassment

Between 40 and 50 percent of women in European Union countries experience unwanted sexual advances, physical contact or other forms of sexual harassment at work.

Across Asia, studies in Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines and South Korea show that 30 to 40 percent of women suffer workplace sexual harassment.

In Nairobi, 20 percent of women have been sexually harassed at work or school.

In the United States, 83 percent of girls aged 12 to 16 experienced some form of sexual harassment in public schools.

Rape in the
context of Conflict

Conservative estimates suggest that 20,000 to 50,000 women were raped during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, while approximately 250,000 to 500,000 women and girls were targeted in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Between 50,000 and 64,000 women in camps for internally displaced people in Sierra Leone were sexually assaulted by combatants between 1991 and 2001.

In eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, at least 200,000 cases of sexual violence, mostly involving women and girls, have been documented since 1996: the actual numbers are believed to be far higher.

(The Facts: Violence Against Women & Millennium Development Goals (compiled by UNIFEM, 2010). Available in English, French and Spanish)The main sources of data available by country (focused on domestic and sexual violence):

Demographic and Health Survey Domestic Violence Module. Country data available in English, search for DHS “Final Reports” and topic “Domestic Violence”. 

The International Violence against Women Surveys publication and country-level data, available for purchase from Springer.

The World Health Organization (WHO) Multi-country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence against Women Study and Fact Sheets.

The Secretary-General’s Database on Violence against Women and Girls (go to “Advanced Search” and filter for Research and Statistical Data)

The Tools Section of the Virtual Knowledge Centre to End Violence against Women and Girls (filter for data/surveys and country reports) for additional reports.

Some Questions that need to be answered on Domestic Violence

Posted on <time class="entry-date" datetime="2012-03-11T17:59:35+00:00" pubdate="">March 11, 2012</time> by Anand Philip

Background: Poet and Dalit activist Meena kandasamy recently wrote about her story of domestic violence. She is an evocative writer and her article has resulted in a lot of conversation on various web-platforms.  Among the usual “hear, hear” and “she must be lying”  comments were a few a few questions that are earnest and need to be answered. This is a post addressing those questions.

Note: I am not trying to explain Meena Kandasamy’s story, I have no business doing that. I am strictly answering general questions on the topic of Domestic violence.

How can feminists be victims of violence?

One of the earliest reactions to this story was “how can someone so “strong”, a fierce feminist, put up with domestic violence?”. I hope this leads to people searching for truths about domestic violence, and not concluding that her story is fabricated based on a presupposition that strong women do not get beaten up. On my timeline on twitter, stories were pouring in about VP’s of companies, Doctors, and NGO owners who were victims of violence who suffered in silence for a long time. This is, no doubt, puzzling and I hope to explain why it happens.

Principle 1 : Violence does not happen to you because you are weak.

Violence does not affect only un-educated women in the third world. It does not even  happen to only to women. You will find doctors, writers, CEOs, soldiers who put up with violence from an intimate partner for years before they breakdown and take steps to end the relationship.

Strong women, feminists, empowered women, dykes, men, macho men, anyone can be beaten up.

Why?

Some women might not have the typical patterns of financial dependence, social pressures and things like that holding them back, but there are other, equally valid and powerful factors at play.

1. Violence
        perpetrators are often great at manipulating people, and all of us,
        feminists and scientists are equally vulnerable to this.
2. Fear of
        escalation: “if things are this bad now, imagine if I try to retaliate” .
3. Learned
        helplessness: Our culture is harsh to victims, as the response to the
        article reveals, but worse is when the person makes several attempts to
        change things, as many women do, but the violence does not abate, and
        often gets worse. In such situations, as counterintuitive as it sounds,
        people almost always react with helplessness or giving up.
4. Hope,
        denial, love. We are capable of loving awful people. We also hope that the
        wonderful person we fell in love with will  someday come back, that
        this behavior is a result of work pressure, your own inadequacy or other
        reasons.
5. Financial
        dependence: Powerful does not mean independent. Activists need money just
        like the rest of us do.

Principle 2 : Strength is not perfect or universal.

We think strong people are strong in everything they do. We associate ideology, money, and education with strength.In reality, however, “strength” in one part of life, or one way often does not translate into strength in all other parts of life. We are often great project managers with highly messy personal lives. We are often very successful people with desolate emotional lives.

Principle 3: Violence is not a sign of strength

Violence is a result of poor control of anger, inability to react maturely to conflict, and deep emotional issues, not a sign of strength. We think violent people are macho, testosterone junkies with strong personalities, but anyone who has been bullied knows that bullies are often emotional wrecks. In fact, studies have shown that men who perpetuate domestic violence are often emotionally dependent on women. This also explains how many wife-beaters are full of sorrow the moment the violence is over and are profuse in  their promise that it wont happen again.

Principle 4: Empowerment is not magic

We think of empowerment as a magic moment where the chains of social norms, the burden of gender roles and the entanglements of emotions magically disappear and a woman becomes a super-powered entity who cannot be/should not be affected by petty things like what the society expects of her, attachment etc.In reality, however, empowerment is a process, often lifelong, and there is no one achievement that can make a person fully, inalienable empowered. It takes years of struggle for empowerment in one of its form, say, education, to breach the thick walls of the other oppressions that co-exist.

“But they look so happy together”

Yes, they often do. As do people who live in slums, is their life without any problems? We believe in appearances, not just for the sake of those who watch, but for our own selves. People going through the worst in life often smile and seem happy because if they start crying, the tears wont stop and their already tenuous grip on their lives will be gone for ever. At least, this is what we are programmed to believe. As my daddy taught me “Brave children dont weep at small things”. 

But he is such a nice guy.

I’ve written about this before: here is the original post, which is also a summary  “He is not a nice guy”

But cant I doubt the veracity of the claim without being called a
regressive anti-feminist who thinks women deserve getting beaten up and Meena K
is lying?

I am sorry you were called these things. There is no justification for abuse, not towards you, not even towards regressive misanthropes who think women deserve it. But perhaps the (for the lack of a better word) violent responses to questioning the veracity of the claims of a woman who speaks about violence in her life is a glimpse into why it is so tough to speak about it in the first place. Perhaps women who have been beaten have also been called liars by the society for too long. Perhaps, you mistrust stories of violence less than you mistrust other stories. By questioning the story of one woman who claims to be beaten up, you question not just that story, but those of many women who have to express their stories vicariously, through the story of the few who manage to break free.

Principle 5:  If someone confesses to something that happened to them and this has the potential to worsen the emotional, physical or social trauma, believe them.

For example, if you were to read comments and reactions to Meena’s post, or of other people who speak about domestic violence, you will see that a significant minority and in some cases the majority, has nothing but abuses to hurl, this worsens the trauma, and it does not make sense to subject oneself to such pain if there were no truth in their experiences.

This does not, however, mean that you should not question motives, but that when you do, don’t play into the hands of the “she asked for it” and “she is lying” brigades.

It goes without saying that public figures who come out with stories of their own lives have an added responsibility to stick to the absolute truth and not use their position of privilege to worsen things for co- sufferrers. This does not mean that one must automatically assume that public figures will manipulate their stories to “gain attention” or something.

Let me summarize

• Violence
       can happen to anyone.
• It
       can  affect CEOs as much as it can sweepers.
• We often
       think strong or empowered women are never affected by this, but they do,
       the problem is with our thinking, and our way of looking at success,
       empowerment and violence.

I urge you to look for the truth of violence and seek out people who have been hurt and hear their stories.

Note: Domestic and sexual violence does not happen only to women, men suffer too and it is often tougher for them to owe up to it. Physical violence is not the only form of violence, more prevalent and much more malignant is emotional abuse.

***THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION***

IF YOU HAVE ANY IDEAS ON HOW WE CAN HELP INSIDE DA....

IF YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE TO FREELY GIVE HERE (MAINLY IF YOU ARE AN ARTIST, AND ALSO A LAWYER IN YOUR COUNTRY), PLEASE SHARE THEM HERE AS THIS WILL BE READ BY A FEW PEOPLE WHO NEED THE HELP AND ADVICE...

SOME MAY BE MORE CLOSE TO YOU THAN YOU IMAGINE.... BELIEVE ME..... THEY ARE!!!!!!!!!!!

ANYTHING IS OF HELP.... AS LONG AS IT IS NOT JUST

"VIOLENCE SHOULD BE STOPPED NOW" TYPE OF COMMENT..... AS I BELIEVE WE ALL KNOW THAT.....

DEAR ALL.... SORRY ABOUT THIS LONG JOURNAL.... AND THANKS AGAIN FOR YOUR TIME.....

I BELIEVE THAT TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE HERE AND NOW... NO MATTER HOW SMALL THE HELP IS...