Violence against women highlighted on Human Rights Day

Amnesty International (Malta Group) will be holding a number of events to raise awareness on human rights on the occasion of Human Rights' Day on Saturday.

AI said one of the ongoing campaigns is its Stop Violence Against Women. At least one out of every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex, or abused in her lifetime, it said. AI said this figure comes from a study based on 50 surveys from around the world.

More than 60 million women are "missing" from the world today as a result of sex-selective abortions and female infanticide. Physical and mental violence by strangers, relatives, friends, superiors and colleagues is endemic all over the world.

The Council of Europe had stated that domestic violence is the major cause of death and disability for women aged 16 to 44 and accounts for more deaths and ill-health than cancer or traffic accidents.

Nearly half the murdered women are killed by their present or former husband or boyfriend.

Twenty to 70 per cent of abused women never told another person about the abuse until being interviewed for a study (WHO, Geneva, 2002).

In the USA, women accounted for 85 per cent of the victims of domestic violence in 1999 (671,110 compared to 120,100 men), according to the UN special rapporteur on violence against women.

The Russian government estimates that 14,000 women were killed by their partners or relatives in 1999, yet the country still has no law specifically addressing domestic violence.

The World Health Organisation has reported that up to 70 per cent of female murder victims are killed by their male partners.

Trafficking of women and girls was reported in 85 per cent of the conflict zones (Save the Children 2003).

In the Democratic Republic of Congo 5,000 cases of rape, corresponding to an average of 40 a day, were recorded in the Uvira area by women associations since October 2002 (UN 2003).

In Rwanda between 250,000 and 500,000 women, or about 20 per cent of the female population, were raped during the 1994 genocide (International Red Cross report, 2002).

In Sierra Leone, 94 per cent of displaced households surveyed had experienced sexual assaults, including rape, torture and sexual slavery (Physicians for Human Rights, 2002).

In Iraq, at least 400 women and girls as young as eight were reported to have been raped in Baghdad during or after the war, since April 2003 (Human Rights Watch Survey, 2003).

Every 14 days a Colombian woman is a victim of forced "disappearance" according to a 2001 report by the Women and Armed Conflict Work Table (UNIFEM 2001).

In Bosnia and Herzegovina 20,000 - 50,000 women were raped during five months of conflict in 1992.

In some villages in Kosovo, 30 - 50 per cent of women of child bearing age were raped by Serbian forces (Amnesty International, 27 May 1999).