Femicide > 140 women and girls murdered by family members every day; Barely Surviving Femicide; FGM - Sexual Assault - One Survivor's Story; Kenyans take their daughters to Uganda for FGM; Romainia - Moldova husband murderers

 

Femicide occurs everywhere for many reasons. But the highest rates of violence against women and girls occur in three main societies. Islam, India, and curiously, the Nordic countries. The first two because women and girls a valued far below men and boys in Islam and in Hindu and Sikh cultures. The third is called the Nordic Paradox, where feminism is very strong and partner violence is the highest in Europe. It seems gender equality is necessary for harmony within a home.

Violence Against Women: Deadliest place

for women is at home, UN report says

Europe

A UN report released on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women said that "almost 60 percent of all women who were intentionally killed in 2023" died at the hands of partners or family members. The report added that “the home is the most dangerous place for women and girls”.

Issued on: 25/11/2024 - 11:50Modified: 25/11/2024 - 11:51

2 min

By:

NEWS WIRES

Protestors march during the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in Paris, France, 

Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024. © Thibault Camus, AP

The deadliest place for women is at home and 140 women and girls on average were killed by an intimate partner or family member per day last year, two U.N. agencies reported Monday.

Globally, an intimate partner or family member was responsible for the deaths of approximately 51,100 women and girls during 2023, an increase from an estimated 48,800 victims in 2022, UN Women and the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime said.

The report released on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women said the increase was largely the result of more data being available from countries and not more killings.

But the two agencies stressed that “Women and girls everywhere continue to be affected by this extreme form of gender-based violence and no region is excluded.” And they said, “the home is the most dangerous place for women and girls.”

Of course, it is probable that women spend more of their lives at home than anywhere else. The vast majority of their interpersonal relationships occur in the home. It would be very surprising if the most dangerous place for women were anywhere other than the home.

The highest number of intimate partner and family killings was in Africa – with an estimated 21,700 victims in 2023, the report said. Africa also had the highest number of victims relative to the size of its population — 2.9 victims per 100,000 people.

There were also high rates last year in the Americas with 1.6 female victims per 100,000 and in Oceania with 1.5 per 100,000, it said. Rates were significantly lower in Asia at 0.8 victims per 100,000 and Europe at 0.6 per 100,000.

According to the report, the intentional killing of women in the private sphere in Europe and the Americas is largely by intimate partners.

By contrast, the vast majority of male homicides take place outside homes and families, it said.

“Even though men and boys account for the vast majority of homicide victims, women and girls continue to be disproportionately affected by lethal violence in the private sphere,” the report said.

“An estimated 80% of all homicide victims in 2023 were men while 20% were women, but lethal violence within the family takes a much higher toll on women than men, with almost 60% of all women who were intentionally killed in 2023 being victims of intimate partner/family member homicide,” it said.

The report said that despite efforts to prevent the killing of women and girls by countries, their killings “remain at alarmingly high levels.”

“They are often the culmination of repeated episodes of gender-based violence, which means they are preventable through timely and effective interventions,” the two agencies said.

(AP)

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The moving testimony of one woman

who escaped femicide

Issued on: 25/11/2024 - 15:03Modified: 25/11/2024 - 15:38

Last year in France 134 women were killed by their current or former partners. Tackling the rate of femicide was one of Emmanuel Macron’s pledges when he came to power in 2017. Since then various measures have been put in place to bring that number down but rights groups maintain that too many women are still victims of fatal violence. Here’s the moving testimony of one woman who escaped that fate.

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I have been calling Female Genital Mutilation a form of child sexual abuse for the 11 years I have been doing this blog. It's effects are an immediate assault on a girls vagina, and a permanent effect, actually several heinous, permanent effects on her sex life for the rest of her life.

'We need to reframe the language' on FGM as

sexual assault, survivor Leyla Hussein says

Africa

PERSPECTIVE © FRANCE 24

Issued on: 25/11/2024 - 12:52

08:54 min

From the show

A woman who was subjected as a child to Female Genital Mutilation has spoken to FRANCE 24 about the violence and torture she was forced to undergo. Leyla Hussein is a psychotherapist who now specialises in supporting survivors of sexual abuse. She grew up in Somalia, where she was subjected to FGM at the age of seven. It wasn’t until she was living in London and gave birth to her first child that she realised what had happened to her. She spoke to us in Perspective as part of our coverage of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

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Genital mutilations: Kenyan families send

their girls across border to evade prosecution

On the ground

Issued on: 25/11/2024 - 15:21

Modified: 25/11/2024 - 15:28

Today marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. In Kenya, 15 percent of girls have undergone female genital mutilation. Efforts to combat and criminalise the practice are growing, with stricter laws having been in place since 2011. Former President Uhuru Kenyatta promised the procedure would have disappeared by 2023. But many families have found a way of evading prosecution: they are sending their girls across borders to get the procedure done in neighbouring countries. FRANCE 24’s Olivia Bizot and Bastien Renouil report.

By Ioana Pascaru und Jan Petter, Miguel Hahn and Jan-Christoph Hartung (Photos) in Chișinău and Brașov

12.11.2024, 14.02 Uhr

It’s not perfectly accurate to say that you learn nothing in prison. Elisabeta easily dribbles past her son, juggles the soccer ball on her head a la Ronaldinho and pounds it into the black metal goal. She learned it all during her half decade behind bars.

She was just seven years old when she was promised to Dancu. She was 17 when she married him. And 32 when she beat him to death with a hammer.

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Prior to that, she had repeatedly called the police, reporting the physical beatings he would mete out to her. But nobody ever came. Only before the court in Brașov was she finally able to tell her story. About how he was initially reliable before then succumbing to alcohol. About how he beat her in front of their children until he broke her arm, the traces of which are still visible today. How he would physically abuse their five children. About how she tried to escape. And about how the police sent her back to live with him in the small dwelling on the outskirts of the city.

About how she finally decided to kill him in his sleep before he could do the same to her. Afterwards, her oldest son congratulated her: "It’s finally over, mama.”

The judge sentenced her to seven years behind bars in Târgşor, a women’s prison. After five years and four months, she was let out for good behavior. Since then, she has again been living in Brașov, a city in central Romania. It wasn’t possible to verify all aspects of her story.

For many years, stories of women who kill their partners have repeatedly found their way into the Romanian tabloids and evening news broadcasts. There are also a number of similar cases in the neighboring country of Moldova. Some refer to them as "husband murderers.” That, however, isn’t strictly accurate: In many cases, it was self-defense. For sheer survival.

The women have names like Nicoleta, Svetlana, Natalia and Maria. They have asked that their family names not be used for this story. They killed their partners because of the beatings and threats, and the risk of being murdered themselves. In most cases, they used a knife, though in one case, a soup ladle apparently also played a role. It isn’t difficult to understand why they make for such great yellow press fodder.

There is much more to this story on Der Speigel. Continue reading at:

What is more difficult to find are real explanations.