Breaking the Silence: Shedding Light on Violence Against Women

Violence against women is the topic of this essay because this problem still exists as one of the main issues in the 21st century. Violence in this context does not mean only physical violence. It is much broader and includes sexual, emotional, psychological and financial abuse. It is categorized as hostile aggression an act of aggression stemming from feelings of anger and is aimed at inflicting pain or injury. WHO estimates that one-third of women and girls worldwide experience violence at some point in their lives. In Turkey, most of the cases were reported included Femicide, killing women because of their gender, which is a longstanding issue. Nearly 300, women have been killed so far in 2019. Factors, such as family factors, where exposure to harsh physical discipline during childhood and witnessing the father violence against mother during childhood is the key role for the child to be violent against women at the adulthood. Other factors such as traditional and cultural practices perpetuating violence against women are the root causes of Female genital mutilation, acid attacks in Bangladesh, and killing in the name of family honor in the middle east. These factors make women less to contribute to society. Hence, solutions must be implemented to reduce these vicious attacks on women as they are a part of the human race despite their biological differences.

One type of violence is domestic violence. Women are more likely to be victimized by someone who is close to them and in an intimate relationship with them, commonly called intimate partner violence. Incidents of intimate partner violence mostly are not reported to the police and therefore it is hard for experts to find an estimation of the impact of this problem and measure its magnitude. In England and Wales, about 100 women are killed by partners or ex-partners each year. In 2008, in France, 156 women were killed by their intimate partners. According to the WHO, globally, 38% of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner which is a big number. Considering the unreported cases, it might double these values.

Another type of violence that is one of the worst types of violence is rape. Women tend to be mostly the victims of rape. The frequency of reporting, prosecution, and convictions for rape considerably in different jurisdictions and reflects some extent the society's attitudes to such crimes. It is considered the most underreported violent crime. Following a rape, a victim is jeopardized to face violence or threats of violence from the rapist, and from the victim's own family and relatives. Because of that, the amount of violence in rape is not shortly constrained in sexual attack but also in the violence that occurs after the rape. Where culture plays an important role by blaming the victim or uses other traditional notions such as the victim’s honor, leaving the woman in a left-over condition with no opportunity in pursuing marriage anymore. This effect makes violence against woman have both the physical violence plays its role on the short term and psychological violence to take the whole life span of the individual. Where in it, cultural notions and beliefs play its role in damaging the victim.

Violence against women tends to push women from contributing to the society in social, economic, and political development. Many women are terrified by these threats of violence and this tend to have a repulsive effect where it essentially influences their lives so that they are resistance to any exercise of their human rights; for instance, in a society, where women are considered to be half of its population. They fear to contribute to the development of their communities socially, economically and politically, which will effect heavily on this society as major impact of women is missing.

However, the best way to end violence against women is to address it from occurring in the first place. One of the solutions to reduce violence against women is to legislate some hardcore punishment for the convicted. It was conducted in Jordan where the convicted sentenced to 3 years in prison. After the jury, his hair was shaved to zero on national television. Therefore, such effective hardcore laws were the leading factor to reduce the percentage of harassment on the local level. Another solution is to increase the level of interaction between opposite genders from a young age. To raise awareness about the importance of respect and mutual work. And at adulthood, the Code of conduct at the workplace, school, and home, concerning the interaction with persons of the opposite sex should be outlined and implemented, to regulate an individual’s behavior.