By Patricia Watson, Acting Flair Co-ordinator 
Ian Allen Photo
FOR YEARS, women world-wide have been beaten some to the point of death, forced to have sex and violated emotionally. Many women suffer silently from this violence for years, praying for relief by any means including death. Many never speak about what happens to them because they are ashamed to do so or in some instances because violence against women is not considered a crime.
The acts of violence committed against women is so pervasive that in 1993, the United Nations (UN) officially took up the issue and passed the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The declaration defines violence against women as 'any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life (International Planned Parenthood Federation).
In 1994, year after the UN declaration, the International Conference on Population and Development also recognised that violence against women is an obstacle to women's reproductive and sexual health and rights.
The Centre for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) in the US reports that at least one in every three women world-wide has been physically abused. But probably the most horrifying fact in these cases is that the violence is usually perpetrated by a member of her own family. In most cases it's her husband or intimate male
partner.
Partner violence is believed to be one of the most common forms of violence against women and occurs in all countries and among all social, economic, religious and cultural groups.
WIDESPREAD
Many of us know women who are physically abused and it is not uncommon to hear women comment that "him will lick mi one time and get away with it, but not two times". Others among us women wonder aloud why "she stay with the man if he is beating her?" Some even proceed to label the women who remain in these abusive relationships 'stupid'.
In the US, two million women are beaten by their partners, and more than half a million women report being raped or sexually assaulted. Data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) show that between 20 and 50 per cent of women interviewed in 24 countries on four continents suffered physical abuse from their male partners.
Information taken from "Where Women Stand An international report on the status of women in 140 countries, 1997-1998" shows that "the number of women reporting physical abuse by a male partner during the period 1986-1993 were between 21 per cent and 60 per cent" (International Planned Parenthood Federation- IPPF). In Chile, Ecuador, Sri Lanka and Tanzania, 60 per cent of the women reported being abused. In Japan, 59 per cent, Zambia 40 per cent and the US, 28 per cent.
The IPPF also report that one adult woman out of every six in South Africa is assaulted regularly by her mate and that the men involved also abuse the women's children in 46 per cent of the cases. In Egypt, domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women and account for 28 per cent of all trauma unit visits. And in Bagladesh, 50 per cent of wives murdered are killed by their husbands (Stewart, 1989 in IPPF).
IN THE CARIBBEAN
Closer to home in Barbados, 30 per cent of women report being beaten by their male partners and 50 per cent of these report their mothers were also battered.
In Jamaica, violence against women is widespread. However, much of it goes unreported. In 2000, 992 cases of domestic violence was reported to the Crisis Centre, but this is believed to be only the tip of the problem.
"There are a lot of reasons for not reporting and one of the key reasons that we know here is fear. Many women are being subjected to domestic violence at the highest end of the scale that you can think of but they are fearful," Joyce Hewett, committee member of Woman Inc. said.
In many instances, women are intimidated and threatened into silence, she noted.
"Many times they have no economic recourse, they have nowhere to go, they are in many cases in a state of helplessness and hopelessness where even though they know in their minds they may feel that they need to go and report it they just cannot get the physical strength to get up and go and even make that call or make that walk and seek help through the crisis centre."
Mrs. Hewett explained that from the late 1990s there has been an increase in the number of abuses.
"It's escalated, whereby you see more often weapons being used, the knives machetes and guns," she noted.
WHAT DRIVES MEN TO ABUSE THEIR WOMEN?
Dr. Michael Ghiglieri, a biological anthropologist stated in a documentary entitled "No Safe Place" aired on PBS in 1999 stated that "men employ violence against everyone irrespective of sex and gender and even against other species if they get in the way." He explained that violence is a male tactic.
"Among many other species including ourselves, there is a very strong male trait to control women, especially the woman who has betrothed herself or partnered up with you and men are often times very insecure about whether that partnership is secure," Dr. Ghiglieri said.
"I think in general if you want to get the simplest perspective on it, males use violence to control females and they do it very often and they control those females for sexual reasons in and specifically from our point of view, women, the control of women is strictly about having a monopoly on the sexual activity of that woman. In other words, she's mine exclusively and the way I as a violent man keep her by intimidating her into staying into that state and not wandering somewhere else."
Staff reporter Naomi Francis,
contributed to this article
Over the next three weeks, Flair will focus on the issue of violence against women. We'll examine why men abuse women, look at women who have broken free from abusive relationships, and those who didn't, the role of the police and the courts.
