Addressing violence against women and achieving the Millennium Development Goals
MDG 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
Combating violence against women is central to the Goal 3, that of promoting gender equality; at the same time, achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment is central to the elimination of violence against women. Since violence against women has such serious impacts on women’s lives and their health, productivity and well-being, it must be addressed as a cross-cutting issue if Goal 3 is to be achieved. The attainment of MDG 3 will require a comprehensive approach to overcome not only violence against women, but also gender-based discrimination in laws and policies, and deeply embedded social and cultural norms that perpetuate gender inequality (1) 7.
Violence against women and gender inequality result from a complex array of interwoven factors. These include harmful gender norms and traditions, and social acceptance of violence as an accepted means of conflict resolution. Violence against women is often embedded in social customs that allow it to be perpetrated with impunity – even, in many cases, without being considered as violence, let alone a crime. In many parts of the world, women have no social or legal recourse against violence by their husband or partner. Harmful gender roles can be reinforced by traditional practices such as widow-cleansing, wife inheritance, child marriage and female genital mutilation. Dowry and bride-price can become a basis for demands, resentment, threats and abuse by husbands and in-laws, and women who try to leave abusive marriages may be murdered or driven to suicide. Women and girls are killed because they are thought to have tarnished the honour of their husbands or families. Since such murder is considered justified, the perpetrators face no consequences. Efforts to empower women must address current norms and traditional social customs that legitimize violence against them, as well as legislation and enforcement of laws that discriminate against them.
A wide variety of tools and strategies will be required to overcome deeply embedded gender norms and systemic discrimination against women. These include visible and sustained leadership by politicians and other key figures in society, communication campaigns aimed at changing norms and attitudes, law reform on issues such as property rights, divorce, and political participation, and credit and skills-building programmes to increase women’s economic independence.
Greater equality and empowerment will help many women to avoid violence. But the violence will never disappear unless men also change their attitudes and reject violence against women as acceptable behaviour in any context, including in the home.
Most of the violence experienced by women is perpetrated by someone they know – most often, their husband or partner. A review of nearly 50 population-based surveys from around the world found that between 10% and 50% of women reported being hit or physically abused by an intimate male partner at some point in their lives (9). However, a significant amount of violence is perpetrated by strangers, as well as authority figures such as the police or men in government, and by combatants during armed conflict. The effects on women range from death and injury to psychological trauma, chronic ill-health, and reproductive health consequences such as sexually transmitted diseases (STIs), unwanted pregnancy, miscarriages, and increased numbers of induced abortions (3). Initiatives to promote gender equality must deal openly and vigorously with the issue of partner violence, because women will never be equal in their public lives until they are equal at home.
A mix of interventions specifically aimed at reducing violence and protecting women will be required. These interventions include enactment and enforcement of sanctions against men who perpetrate violence against women; training of judiciary, police and health care workers to recognize and deal appropriately with violence against women; and services for women experiencing violence such as shelters, telephone hotlines; psychological and legal advice, and support networks (1). Continuous monitoring of such initiatives is important. Governments should ensure that statistics on violence against women, including on prosecution and conviction rates, are regularly collected and disseminated and that interventions to address violence are properly evaluated.
Does MDG 3 need additional targets related directly to violence?
While the targets and indicators under MDG 3 recognize that education, literacy, wage employment and political participation are important indices of women’s empowerment, their achievement – in and of themselves – does not directly address violence against women. This has led the Millennium Project Task Force on Education and Gender Equality to suggest that other country-level targets and indicators be included for this MDG. One of the targets suggested is that the lifetime prevalence of violence against women be reduced by 50% by 2015 (1).
7 See Recommendation 6 of the World report on violenceand health: “Integrate violence prevention into social and MDGs&VAW.qxp 2005-09-15 16:41 Page 44 educational practices, and thereby promote gender and social equality” (Geneva, World Health Organization, 2002).