Online reports – Society – Women are still the victims of violence of all kinds

© Photo by Ruedi Suter, OnlineReports.ch

“The forms of assault are numerous”: mother with child

There is nothing to celebrate on International Women’s Day, March 8

Every day, women and girls fall victim to violence. Everywhere, worldwide. Victims of individual, structural or state violence. The repressed suffering is largely unimaginable suffering. Unless men try to describe it now and again.

By EVA VAN BEEK*

Violence against women has many faces. It is used in different ways, is often repressed, underestimated and reduced to the classification of violence. This is wrong, as the long list of different forms of violence proves: collective and military violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Violence tolerated or even carried out by the state in Honduras. Structural violence against minorities in Bulgaria. Discrimination in access to health care and education in various countries.

In sub-Saharan Africa, more and more women are falling victim to the HIV epidemic because many men are not taking precautions. In the Middle East, women are losing their lives because they are said to have violated the “honor” of their husband and family. And in Europe, countless women and girls are victims of domestic violence. Added to this is prostitution, which is often the last resort for many women in extreme need. Sad fact: From the Democratic Republic of Congo to Bulgaria, the exchange of sexual services for a little money or food is often the only source of income for entire families.

Collective rape in front of relatives

But what exactly does “violence against women” mean? For the employees of the organization “Doctors Without Borders” working in crisis areas, violence is not an empty term. MSF people are repeatedly confronted with indescribable cruelty: in Ituri (DRC), collective rapes of women, girls and sometimes boys are used as an instrument of torture in front of powerless husbands and parents. In Tegucigalpa, Honduras, pimps and violent customers execute young girls. In this situation, MSF tried to help by providing medical support. At the same time, the organization will draw attention to a problem that is still very taboo and can only be addressed with clear political positions and decisions on the part of governments.

The following three reports illustrate the horrifying violence and constant humiliation that girls and women in many countries are still subjected to. These are attacks that occur every day – and yet receive far too little attention.

Case 1: Cécile, abused at the age of eight

In Ituri, the eastern province of Congo-Kinshasa, systematic rape and sexual exploitation are the order of the day. Here is the story of Cécile's suffering (all names have been changed). The girl is eight years old and lives in Bunia. Cécile tells:

“I was coming back from visiting my grandmother. It was three o'clock in the afternoon. A man I knew, a friend of my uncle, asked me to work for him. I replied that I was coming from my grandmother's and was on my way home. Because I wanted to escape, the man gave a boy I didn't know a quick order to catch me, who put a piece of plastic in my mouth. He dragged me into the bushes, threw me to the ground, lifted up my skirt, ripped my panties, pulled down his pants and penetrated my stomach with his genitals.

He raped me for a long time. When it was getting dark, he dragged me to the Ngezi River and threw me in. I dragged myself out of the water. A few minutes later, I pulled myself together and went home. My skirt was covered in blood and dirt. I could hardly walk and had to stop several times along the way. I got home at eight o'clock in the evening and still had that piece of plastic in my mouth. When my mother saw me, she took the plastic away and asked me what had happened. I told her everything. My father then started looking for the perpetrator, who was eventually taken to the police station. Since then, I have had constant stomach pains and the rape keeps recurring in my dreams.

Case 2: Malina is forced into prostitution by her father

Bulgaria, winter 2004. Botevgrad on the border with Romania: Malina has just turned 13. Today her father has taken her and one of her older sisters to the truck parking lot. The wind is icy cold. Her father will pick her up before nightfall, otherwise she could be kidnapped by the mafia and sent to France or Italy. Her body is squeezed into a provocative miniskirt. She prostitutes herself for a few Leva and supports her family without having any prospects for the future.

She comes from a Roma family. Her young body is already suffering from the violence that the discriminated Roma community as a whole is subjected to. She has already been treated twice in the MSF mobile clinic for sexually transmitted diseases. Hundreds of girls like Malina are now paying this sad price for the economic decline of post-communist Bulgaria. A price also for the gradual disappearance of mutual aid in a system in which everything is increasingly becoming a commodity.

Case 3: Isabel's only hope is drugs

Honduras, Tegucigalpa, 2004. For over a year, Isabel has been using marijuana and sniffing glue. She recently started using crack. She says the drugs allow her to forget her sad story. “When I get up and have something to smoke, I smoke. Then I don't eat in the morning or in the evening – because nobody gives me anything to eat. And I sniff glue! After that, you don't think about anything…” Isabel seems to have very little self-esteem: “I'm broken, I'm dirty, I have no place to wash, no clothes, the only thing I like about myself is my eyes and my eyelashes, which are neatly separated. I don't like my face because it's covered in scars and I have such an ugly voice that when I scream you can hear it all over Honduras!”

Isabel often only survives thanks to the help of the group she is part of. The girls on this dirty stretch of street show solidarity with each other when faced with problems from outside: if a customer doesn't pay, if she hits a customer, or if passers-by insult them, they react extremely aggressively, arming themselves with stones or knives and not hoping to use them. Nevertheless, there are sometimes conflicts among them over a guy or drugs, which can end badly. The law of the street is that of the strongest, and that is the only way to gain respect. Another survival strategy is to seek protection from someone. In doing so, the girls often come across dubious types who are the only ones who want to exploit them economically and physically – and are allowed to do so. Because there are no worthy female alternatives.

* Eva van Beek is communications officer for Doctors Without Borders Switzerland.

March 8, 2005

“Creeping oppression in Western Europe”

In addition, increasingly brutal forms of oppression are being implemented in Western Europe. This is not about wage discrimination, but about the most basic things such as physical integrity, self-determination, freedom of movement and opinion, and the right to education.

A few clues: In Berlin-Neukölln, Arab girls no longer play with the last German girls because they are sinful and doomed to hell (“Messages from the parallel world”, Frankfurter Rundschau online, 06.12.2004). In a municipal analysis of the Berlin district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg (Zentrum Demokratische Kultur, 2003), an employee of an intercultural institution says: “Whether I am Turkish or Afro-German, a woman without a headscarf is suddenly no longer OK.” (p. 61) The annual (!) number of genital mutilations in Germany, Great Britain and France is estimated at 10,000 to 20,000 each (!) (“Girls are also ritually mutilated in Germany”, Die Welt, 12.12.1996). Furthermore, we should remember the honor killing in Basel in the summer of 2002 (Marktplatz) or Hatin Sürücü this February in Berlin. Did you know that in the Greek region of Thrace, 10-year-old Muslim girls can be married due to a special law? (“The Married Child”, Die Welt, 25.02.2005)

While women in the Middle East (eg the brutally crushed women's demonstration in Turkey) are fighting for their rights at great risk, European left-wing politicians like Ms Calmy-Rey or Ms Vollmer (Greens, Germany) are undermining these rights by submitting to the headscarf requirement during their visits. Simply sad and embarrassing.

“Men are responsible for women because Allah has made some of them superior to others and because they spend of their wealth. So the virtuous women are the obedient and the ones who are truthful (to their husbands) with Allah's help. And those whose rebelliousness you fear, admonish them, avoid them in bed and beat them!” (Sura 4:34, www.islam.ch, Koran online)

Ask a devout Muslim about his interpretation of the Koran, combine it with statements from imams in our mosques and think about it… Think also of the – partly successful – efforts in France and Germany to make public baths accessible only to women (usually Muslim women) at certain times. And don't forget the threat against the “Forum for a Progressive Islam”.

While in Europe, in the name of multiculturalism and false tolerance, the oppression of women is increasingly tolerated in many countries, the otherwise often “moderate” UN speaks out clearly in its reports on the Arab world about the situation of freedoms and women (Arab Human Development Report 2002, 2003). However, it is by no means certain that women in the Middle East will fare better in the democracies that may emerge if the Islamists come to power. And even if they do, the oppressive men will have no choice but to flee to the paradise of open societies in Europe, where almost everything is tolerated today.

Andy WolfMuttenz