Women and Children in Poverty - Violence Against Women

Violence against women happens in every economic class of every culture around the world. While it is a TABLE 7.7 Country prospects for the achievement of gender parity in primary and secondary education by 2005 and 2015 "Table 2. 10. Country Prospects for the Achievement of Gender Parity in Primary and Secondary Education by 2005 and 2015," in Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2006: Literacy for Life, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2005, http://www.unesco.org/education/GMR2006/full/chapt2_eng.pdf (accessed April 8, 2006). Copyright © UNESCO, 2005multifaceted social problem, many experts consider it to be largely a health issue because of the physical and emotional havoc it wreaks on its victims; the other dimension of violence against women is that it is a human rights issue. Amnesty International calls it "a major human rights scandal and a public health crisis" ("Women, Violence, and Health," March 2004, http://www.web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGACT770012005?open&of1/4ENG-366). Although hard data are difficult to obtain because of the covert nature of the problem, there is a known link between violence against women and poverty. Figure 7.9 shows percentages of women in selected low-income countries who believed wife-beating was justified as of 2004. The reasons given—presented in the graph's "Note"—are indicative of the status of women in these cultures.

In Addressing Violence against Women and Achieving the Millennium Development Goals (2005, http://www.who.int/gender/documents/MDGs&VAWSept05.pdf), the WHO cites two main reasons poor women are more vulnerable to violence than their nonpoor counterparts: fewer resources—in terms of both money and support services—to help women avoid or escape violence; and the stressors of poverty, such as hunger, unemployment, and lack of education, that may lead some men to become violent or exacerbate an already violent situation. In addition, women who work in unregulated, informal employment are often subject to physical, sexual, or psychological abuse by their employers. In both developing and developed countries, social standards and enforced gender roles contribute to the incidence of violence.

The WHO report recommends several global economic actions that can affect women who are routine victims of violence:

• Promote increased access to postprimary, vocational and technical education for women
• Address gender gaps in earnings as well as barriers to accessing credit for women
• Extend and upgrade childcare benefits to enable women's full participation in the paid labor market
• Address issues of occupational segregation that often translate into inferior conditions of employment for women

FIGURE 7.9 Women who believe wife beating is justified for at least one reason, selected countries, 2004 "Figure 5. Women Who Believe Wife Beating Is Justified for at Least One Reason," in State of World Population 2005, United Nations Population Fund, 2005, http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2005/pdf/en_swp05.pdf (accessed April 8, 2006). Data from Kishor, S. and K. Johnson, 2004, Profiling Domestic Violence: A Multicountry Study, Calverton, MD: ORC Macro, Measure DHS+:66.

• Ensure social protection and benefits for women in precarious employment situations—often those involved in informal employment

The WHO report notes, however, that increasing women's economic and social opportunities can actually put them at greater risk of violence, as such opportunities can breed resentment from the men in their lives. The WHO emphasizes that a well-funded and developed social support system is essential if poor women are to permanently escape violence. Educational programs are particularly important, for both women and men, if perceived gender roles are to be expanded to include advancement for women without the danger of violence.

Exact figures for incidences of violence are almost impossible to obtain, because most violent acts committed against women—especially in developing countries—go unreported. However, it is estimated that 10% to 50% of women around the world have been assaulted by their husbands or male partners at some point. The numbers rise when brothers and other male relatives who perpetrate the violence are counted. In fact, physical and sexual assaults committed by male family members are the most common type of violence against women. In developing countries this type of violence is largely the result of traditional gender norms, most of which have evolved out of men's social and economic dominance over women.

The connection between poverty and violence against women lies primarily in that dominance. In many cultures women are completely dependent on their husbands and male relatives for survival. Amnesty International cites laws that prohibit women from owning or inheriting property and from divorcing abusive husbands; hierarchies that allow fathers, brothers, and husbands to withhold access to food, clothing, and shelter; and customs, such as "wife inheritance" and honor crimes, that force women to obey male relatives or risk exile or death.

In addition, violent conflicts at the village, tribal, and national level reduce millions of women and children to refugee status, leaving them vulnerable to unemployment, disease, starvation, rape, and kidnapping. Millions more women and children (the UN estimates thirty million worldwide) end up as victims of international sex trafficking; the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families reports that poor women may be lured into the sex trade by promises of a good job in another country, or they may be sold into the trade by their parents, brothers, husbands, or male partners. Others are abducted and forced into the trade. Taken together, these factors leave poor women especially vulnerable to physical, sexual, and psychological violence.

Furthermore, a woman who has suffered domestic violence is more likely to become impoverished. Globally, with as many as one in three women being violently assaulted in her lifetime, the chances of severe, debilitating injury to a large number of abused women are high. In a November 2005 address before the U.S. Congressional Human Rights Caucus, S. K. Guha of UNIFEM noted that violence against women is increasingly acknowledged to be both a consequence and a cause of poverty among women and children. Severely abused women are generally unable to work, especially if they are also responsible for performing the physical labor of harvesting food and gathering fuel and water for their families.

Violence against Women in the United States

In the United States domestic violence is conclusively linked to homelessness among women and children. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reports that domestic violence was cited by 50% of U.S cities surveyed in 2005 as a primary cause of homelessness (http://www.aclu.org/pdfs/dvhomelessness032106.pdf). Further, the ACLU notes that 50% of homeless women in San Diego, California, reported being the victims of domestic violence, and that in Minnesota, one-third of homeless women indicated that they left their homes to escape domestic violence. Overall, according to the National Network to End Domestic Violence, Domestic Violence (September 2004; http://www.nnedv.org/pdf/Homelessness.pdf), 92% of homeless women in the United States have at some point been the victims of severe physical and/or sexual abuse.

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ACT 2005

In December 2005 both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives passed the Violence against Women Act 2005 (VAWA), which was part of the larger Department of Justice authorization bill. The VAWA 2005 is a reauthorization of an earlier act passed in 1994. The 2005 version of VAWA enhanced the provisions of its earlier version, with increased funding for violence-prevention programs, emergency shelter for women and children, and long-term housing solutions for low-income women and their children. The act also mandates that abused women be allowed to take ten days off from work each year to attend court or to look for housing, and it provides greater access to law enforcement and the justice system for abused immigrant woman who would otherwise have no legal recourse and might have to leave the country with abusive partners. Because violent relationships tend to affect poor women disproportionately in the United States, the provisions of the VAWA that allow time off from work and help for immigrant women mean that more poor women will be able to keep their jobs and remain in the country while they make arrangements to leave and/or prosecute their abusers.