This year, please join UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman in support of UNIFEM’s campaign to Say No to Violence against Women! Add your name to a worldwide movement to speak out against violence against women. This initiative will lead up to a campaign by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to put a halt to this shameful human rights violation.
Click on the link to reach the campaign website http://www.saynotoviolence.org
According to UNIFEM Facts & Figures on Violence Against Women:
Violence against women and girls is a problem of pandemic proportions. At least one out of every three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime – with the abuser usually someone known to her [1]. Perhaps the most pervasive human rights violation that we know today, it devastates lives, fractures communities, and stalls development.
Statistics paint a horrifying picture of the social and health consequences of violence against women. For women aged 15 to 44 years, violence is a major cause of death and disability [2]. In a 1994 study based on World Bank data about ten selected risk factors facing women in this age group, rape and domestic violence rated higher than cancer, motor vehicle accidents, war and malaria [3]. Moreover, several studies have revealed increasing links between violence against women and HIV/AIDS. Women who have experienced violence are at a higher risk of HIV infection: a survey among 1,366 South African women showed that women who were beaten by their partners were 48 percent more likely to be infected with HIV than those who were not [4].
(1) General Assembly. In-Depth Study on All Forms of Violence against Women: Report of the Secretary General, 2006. A/61/122/Add.1. 6 July 2006.
(2) Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe 2002, Recommendation 1582 (2002) on Domestic Violence against Women.
(3) World Bank 1993, World Development Report: Investing in Health, New York, Oxford University Press.
(4) Referred to by UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNIFEM, Women and HIV/AIDS: Confronting the Crisis. Geneva, New York. 2004. 47-48.
Click on the link to read full text http://www.unifem.org/campaigns/vaw/facts_figures.php