Violence Against Women Is the Cause & Effect of Gender Inequality: Analysis
Author: Administrator
Date: February 16, 2024
Violence against women in the world and its naked and impudent face in Iran
By Elahe Amani
22 November 2023 – Despite the fact that sixty-three years after the Mirabal sisters were killed during the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic – which marked the political violence against women and the subsequent adoption of this International Day on October 17, 1999 – violence against women and girls has come from the periphery to the center of global debate and positive steps have been taken to prevent it from the global dimension. Sex-gender is one of the most challenging obstacles to achieving human equality, respect for human rights and dignity with various shades in many countries of the world.
Various forms of gender-sexual violence
Today, women experience violence in private, public, social and cyberspace as a relatively new arena. According to reports on internet access between 2019 and 2022, 63% of women worldwide have access to the Internet, and many of them experience some form of gender-based violence in this space. This is a major deterrent to women’s political, economic and social empowerment and participation. The Economist Intelligence Unit (Economist Intelligence Unit) recently published a study that found that 38 percent of women and girls online have experienced some form of gender-based violence, and 85 percent of women have witnessed or witnessed harassment of other women online.
According to the United Nations, although 162 countries have laws on domestic violence in support of violence, many of these laws do not yet have full mechanisms of action and accountability. More than a billion women live in countries that do not have legal protection for violence experienced by women and have not imposed penalties for violence in the private sphere. Most countries that do not have laws on violence against women are in West Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, including Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya and Armenia.
Overall, in today’s world, nearly 736 million women (approximately one in three women) have experienced physical, sexual, emotional and psychological violence from their partners in their lifetime. The United Nations estimates that globally, only 40 percent of affected women seek help, which means that many of the violence is never made public.
Women’s economic and social presence and work environment are not free from sexual harassment and violence. This is especially prominent in jobs where the presence of women is relatively newer (although the dominant gender discourse of jobs is also changing). According to a study of women working in the tech sector, 44 percent of women working in the field experienced some form of gender-based harassment. (1) Even in Western countries where gender-based harassment has been defined in the workplace, and laws have been drawn up, there are many inadequacies in the implementation of laws. The University Women’s Organization of America has released a comprehensive report on Chilling Climate, encouraging girls and female students in technology, math and science, as well as the participation of women in their careers. In the United States, women make up 34 percent of the workforce in these fields, according to the report. Undoubtedly, if such a comprehensive survey were conducted in countries where gender inequality is greater, it would reveal a more challenging face of the gender gap and harassment of women in these jobs.
Environmental crises and its intersection with violence against women are one of the areas that have been more attention in recent years, and its damages with a sexual-gender sensitivity, provide a clearer picture of the intersectionality of environmental crises and their effects on the lower half of the world today. According to a recent report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in September, more women than men are dying in these crises. In addition, women in these crises struggle with greater economic insecurity and are forced to leave their living environments more than men. The resettlement of women with their families and children in a new environment makes everyday life more challenging, and the lack of food and economic insecurity in the sense of experiencing gender-sexual violence for many women. Rape and gender-based violence have been studied for women exposed to environmental harm. One was the experience of women in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the United States, when women sheltered in the shelter were 53.6 percent more likely than the average rape in previous years in Mississippi.
The major impacts and damages of environmental crises on the volume of violence against women and women’s gender roles in different societies is one of the important reasons why the international community assesses the widespread presence of women to resolve and manage environmental crises at a high level of decision-making is the key to effectively dealing with these crises.
Another area of violence against women is small and large military conflicts and wars. The intersection of war and violence with various forms of gender-sexual violence is catastrophic and irreparable harm to women. In addition to the human burden of these wars in general, women experience more layers of gender-sexual violence. The captivity of women and the lack of adequate facilities to quickly put women and children in a safe environment, in addition to insecurity in the areas of water, food and sanitation, make the harm done to women much greater. Reproductive health and care needed by pregnant women who are limited or absent in conflict situations are doing a lot of harm to women and babies. A 2022 UN report estimated that 600 million women and girls live in conflict and conflict-ridden military zones. At the beginning of the Hamas-Israeli war, there were 5,000 pregnant women in Gaza.
In addition, the conditions of war and insecurity cause women human rights defenders and women’s movement activists and feminists to be significantly harmed, arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and politically violent. During 2020-2022, political violence against women increased by 50 percent. Seventy-three percent of women journalists have experienced online violence, and 20 percent have experienced violence in the public following violence and harassment in cyberspace. 82% of women in parliaments around the world reported experiencing some form of psychological violence while at the top of work. These include receiving inappropriate and disturbing images, humiliation, insults, gender indignity, threats, marginalization to participate in politics and activities.
More investment to end violence
The United Nations has always provided guidance to the international community to address violence against women and gender equality. Unfortunately, in the vast majority of countries around the world do not heed these guidelines, and there is no political demand for the elimination of violence against women – even in countries where violence against women is criminalized in the private sphere. However, violence against women has always cost the world a huge economic fortune.
The current theme for November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, is “a further investment in ending gender-based violence.” (3) Encouraging more investment in the prevention of various forms of violence against women is because the world today pays an estimated $1.5 trillion in economic burdens each year for violence against women. The total cost of gender-based violence in the European Union is €366 billion, of which 79 percent (289 billion euros) is the cost of violence against women. For example, to illustrate the huge cost and amount of government investment (part of the budget) to support victims of violence and the gap, 0.04% of EU funding goes to shelters for women who have been subjected to violence. (4)
The call to invest with a focus on preventing violence, in addition to governments, also addresses the private sector, which pays a percentage of the costs of violence against women (including absence from working hours, physical and mental health costs). The foundations and organizations that support women’s institutions, human rights, anti-violence, etc. are also addressing this issue.
In one study, 12 countries that have allocated larger budgets to prevent forms of violence in the private, public and social spheres, and have undertaken measures to educate the public on the trauma of violence, develop legislation, monitor the effective implementation of new laws and policies to respond to violence against women and support women’s organizations, women’s rights advocates and conduct research in this regard, the economic cost is low. The positive effects of investing in preventing violence against women shows that if there is political demand and the necessary funding along with the mechanisms of freedom of expression and the press in the field of transparency and information on the harm of violence against women – which plays a key role in the development of culture – positive steps can be taken towards eradicating all forms of violence against women. Target 5 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals relies on gender equality, which is one of the goals with the largest gap to be achieved by 2030.
Another successful strategy for eliminating violence against women is solidarity with other movements fighting for the elimination of discrimination and social divides. Undoubtedly, the fight against violence against women is at odds with movements such as the elimination of racial, class, ethnic, and religious discrimination. The overlap and intersection of national and global efforts to tackle environmental crises, war, disarray, and global epidemics (such as coronavirus) that deepen all gender-gender divides and make violence against women more pervasive, is a global call for women to be active not only in social movements, but also in leadership and management positions to resolve major global crises that all have a significant impact on gender-gender violence.
Women’s economic, social and political participation, the expansion of women’s rights and freedoms, and encouraging conditions to tackle gender-based violence in today’s world face serious challenges. The major trends in the growth of religious extremism in all religions, especially in Muslim-majority countries and the growth of right-wing and populist forces, have led to global efforts to fight for gender equality and the elimination of gender-based violence with serious obstacles and challenges. Both the political forces of the right and the growth of religious extremism emphasize the definition and redefinition of women’s status and status in the home and society. Such deterrent trends are seen today from India to the United States, from Israel to Italy and other European countries linked to the right, and in Iran and Afghanistan, where religious extremism is at the top of power, and also in countries like Pakistan and Turkey, where right-wing forces and religious extremists are growing.
The Naked and Arrogant Face of Violence Against Women in Iran
Sexual-gender violence in Iran, like other countries in the world, occurs in private, public, social and cyberspace. However, this violence is more pronounced than the vast majority of countries in the world (minus Afghanistan). Violence against women in Iran is a complete and detailed definition of violence by the United Nations General Assembly, which defines it as any gender-based violence that can result in physical, sexual or psychological harm, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty either in society or in personal life.
The 1993 Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women also states that violence may be perpetrated by persons of the same sex, family members and governments. Sexual-gender violence in the private, public, social and even cyberspace spheres of Iran continues to be organized state violence that has violated women’s human rights for more than four decades and has not only not taken steps to eradicate the various forms of violence, but also produced and reproduced it.
Iran’s violent-stricken society blames the responsibility for gender-based violence in the private and public sphere on women and accuses them of laying the groundwork for this violence. The same accusation itself is the notion of a state’s repressive and misogynistic outlook that once again puts women in a cycle of violence, accusation, insult and humiliation.
During the past four decades, there has not been a comprehensive and comprehensive investigation into the dimensions and forms of violence in the family field, including physical, sexual, emotional and psychological violence in Iran, and the conditions and possibility of such research by a civil institution due to the violation of fundamental freedoms are not available. Tyrannical Iranian women’s and human rights organizations have neither the financial means nor the full independence of the state, nor the fundamental freedoms to carry out such research.
Although on the occasion of the International Day against Violence against Women in 2023, the international community emphasizes on more public and private sector investment and civil society to prevent various forms of violence, in Iran, but in Iran, the overweight powers have demonstrated in practice for four decades that they have not only lacked the political will to eliminate forms of gender-based violence, but also systematically produce and reproduce them. Exhibit. By adding more than 30 new crimes to the country’s system of crimes and punishments – from detention to fines – the Family Protection Act through a culture of chastity and hijab is more severe than ever, the disastrous shadow of state-organized violence on Iran’s women and girls.
Considering that 78% of countries in the world have some measures to eliminate violence against women in their budgets, such misogynistic policies indicate that in Iran there is not only no political will to confront violence against women, but also the nature of the powerful who organise state violence themselves, cannot be expected to do so.
In addition to the non-criminalization and non-consideration of protectionist laws for violent people in the private space, along with state-organized violence in the public space, alongside misogynistic laws on divorce, custody and other cases, gender-based violence is neither defined in cyberspace nor in the workplace, nor is there any accountability by the government for perpetrators of violence. Only the perpetrators of violence regarding harassment in the workplace or educational environment and other relationships in society are accountable for social media and its limited possibilities, while widespread violence in cyberspace and social networks has created a very toxic and harmful environment for women.
In the face of all these challenges and forms of violence, which in fact link the demands of the powerful and their regressive mental ideas with patriarchal power relations and the shabby norms of society, the “Woman of Liberty Life” movement is taking shape and shedding hope for a future free from sexism and violence at the heart of one of the darkest moments of Iranian society’s political life. Iran’s women and girls will not be at peace in this historic battle. We are their voices.
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