[women-rights] Despite progress, women still subjected to widespread violence and discrimination

***Learn more about International Women's Day, 8 March 2006:
http://www.hrea.org/feature-events/iwd.php

Development Progress Depends on Equality for Women and Girls

WASHINGTON, D.C., 8 March 2006 -- Despite great progress for women in the
past several decades, women throughout the world are still subjected to
discrimination, violence and exploitation, UNICEF Executive Director Ann
M. Veneman said today.

“Around the globe today, especially in developing countries, girls and
women suffer in silence – out of range of the cameras and off society’s
radar,” Veneman said, giving the keynote address at the Annual
International Women’s Day Luncheon in Washington, D.C. “In too many
nations and regions, women are still devalued and denied or treated as
second-class citizens.

They are the victims of gross inequity or all too often, much worse.”

Stressing the critical link between equality for women and development
progress, Veneman drew attention to widespread abuse and exploitation of
women and children, such as the sexual violence committed in armed
conflict, trafficking, and practices such as honour killings, dowry
crimes, early marriage, and female genital cutting/mutilation.

“Violence against women is the extreme form of inequality, and it is hard
to think of an act against women that can be more damaging or enduring
than sexual violence,” Veneman said.

Noting that sexual violence is not limited to any particular country or
culture, Veneman said it takes on new dimensions in developing countries
and conflict zones. During the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, 500,000 women were
raped and beaten, often by men known to have HIV, Veneman said.

Veneman told the gathering about some of the girls and women she met last
week in the Democratic Republic of Congo who had been sexually assaulted.
They included a 12-year-old girl, an orphan, who went to collect firewood
and was raped and beaten by four men in the bush and a 60-year-old woman
who was tied up and raped and beaten by two soldiers who attacked her when
she went to the field to look for food for her family.

“Rape as a weapon of war is used to terrify and demoralize communities, to
exact vengeance on the men through the women, or because too many
perpetrators simply believe they can do so with impunity,” Veneman said.

She also drew attention to female genital mutilation, which is practiced
in many countries and has severe and lasting physical effects. Globally,
an estimated 100 to 140 million women have undergone the procedure and an
estimated 3 million girls are subjected to the practice every year.

The nature and scale of violence against children globally will be
detailed in the Secretary-General’s Study on Violence Against Children to
be published in October 2006. The study is being developed in close
consultation with UNICEF, which supports programmes throughout the world
to protect children from violence, abuse and exploitation.

Veneman also stressed the importance of education, particularly for girls.
When girls are educated, they are more likely to be able to protect
themselves from disease, including HIV/AIDS, as well as from abuse and
exploitation.

“A society cannot possibly marginalize half its population and expect
positive outcomes,” she said. “The empowerment of women is not just an
issue for women, it is an issue for everyone.”

The Annual International Women’s Day Luncheon is organized by the United
Nations Information Centre, the UN Foundation, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF as
well as UN agencies and NGOs.

UNICEF Press release