UNWC begins annual session with call to stop gender-based violence
March 5, 2013: The United Nations commission focusing on women kicked off its annual
session on Monday with a call to eliminate violence against women and girls, a global
scourge that affects millions around the world.
“Ending violence against women
is a matter of life and death,” Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson told the opening
of the two-week session of the Commission on the Status of Women in New York. “The
problem pervades all countries, even in the most stable and developed regions.”
Mr.
Eliasson stressed that it will take multiple approaches to tackle this issue, from
governments implementing policies to empower victims and prosecute perpetrators, to
creating a culture where gender stereotypes are broken by encouraging men and boys
to take an equal share of responsibilities in their home and families.
“Violence
against women pervades war zones as well as stable communities, capitals as well as
the countryside, public space as well as the private sphere,” Mr. Eliasson said. “Since
it is an unacceptable feature of daily life, we have to respond everywhere and on
every level.”
According to the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment
of Women (UN Women), up to 70 per cent of women in some countries face physical and/or
sexual violence in their lifetime. In countries such as Australia, Canada, Israel,
South Africa and the United States, intimate partner violence accounts for 40 to 70
per cent of female murder victims. In addition, some 140 million girls have suffered
female genital mutilation and millions more are subjected to forced marriage and trafficking.
Mr. Eliasson underlined that eliminating violence against women and girls
is also an issue intricately linked to development and peace. It is critical to achieve
the anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), he said,
as access to sanitation, is essential to guarantee women have safe places to seek
privacy. This is not possible when there are currently more than one billion people
without access to toilets.
“The same is true for our pursuit of peace. Women
are especially vulnerable in conflicts. They are far too often subjected to unspeakable
atrocities,” Mr. Eliasson said, noting that sexual violence in conflict has become
a weapon of terror to instil fear among women and civilian populations.
The
Executive Director of UN Women told the Commission that “the world can no longer afford
the costs of violence against women and girls, the social and economic costs and the
costs in deep human pain and suffering.”
Ms. Bachelet pointed to various incidents
that have occurred during the past year around the world against women and girls that
have sparked massive public outcries, and stressed that it is more urgent than ever
for governments to act on this issue.