Senator Cardin: Violence against women demands action

Feb 19th, 2010 2:57 PM UTC
By Chris Scott

Women Thrive Worldwide picked up a great op-ed from Senator Ben Cardin (MD) discuss his support of the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA). Below is an excerpt– you can get more background on the IVAWA here.

Senator Cardin:

Violence against women ranges from gang rape to domestic violence and from acid burnings to so-called honor killings. It also includes sexual violence as a tool of war, such as what is now occurring on a vast scale in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It has become a serious public health epidemic and a barrier to solving global problems such as poverty and HIV/AIDS. It devastates the lives of millions of women and girls, and it knows no national or cultural barriers.

Women who are abused frequently die or face serious injury and are at much greater risk of dying in pregnancy, having children who die in childhood, and of contracting HIV/AIDS.

What most people don’t realize is that violence against women is also a major cause of poverty. Typically, women are much more likely to be among the world’s poorest, living on a dollar a day or less. Violence reduces their standard of living by preventing them from accessing education or earning the income they need to lift their families out of poverty. In turn, poverty often prevents them from fleeing, perpetuating a vicious cycle that keeps millions of women from making better lives for themselves and their families.

In Nicaragua, for example, a study found that children of female victims of violence left school an average of four years earlier than other children. In India, it has been found that women who experienced even a single incident of violence lost an average of seven working days.

TAGS: From Our Partners, Women ONE2ONE, Women Thrive, Women and Violence