A violence-free society--the hope and the reality.

In June, 2000, the LWF Council met in Finland. One of the more important issues discussed was "violence against women". This topic did not come out of nowhere. In my own experience, it had figured in the Young Women's Festival in Fiji in 1994, organised by the World Council of Churches, from which came a report entitled "I am Worthy", a report demanding a violence free world. Violence against women was also highlighted in the gathering of UN Commission on Status of Women and was echoed in the Decade Festival of the World Council of Churches.

WICAS, The Women's Desk of LWF, also has published a draft document on this subject entitled "Churches say "NO" to Violence Against Women". This was extensively discussed during the Council meeting in 2000. Not everybody considered the document finished, relevant, or the correct way to address the subject, though the women were quite enthusiastic about it. In the end, after much lobbying, it was decided to send the documents to the churches as is, with an accompanying letter indicating that the report could still be improved, but that the Council wanted the churches to work with it NOW and not wait for another six months or so.

As an LWF Council member, I wondered why I felt so passionate about the topic of violence, and then realised that in my work as Emergency Physician in a large inner-city hospital, and before that as a youth doctor, I had encountered many women who had undergone violence. Their experiences are not easy to write about and will surely not be easy to read about either, but the following are some examples from the multitude I have encountered during my work.

A Moroccan girl, raised in the Netherlands, came to the Emergency Room in a panic. She told me that a week or so before, she had been assaulted by a family member of her father. Apparently he was drunk and at some point had tried to force himself on her. Apart from questions of pregnancy, she was mostly worried that she had lost her virginity and in her culture virginity is important. She had plans to get married and was afraid these plans would be cancelled if the unspeakable had happened. She had not been able to talk to anyone about her fears, since that would tear her family apart, and she would be considered a "bad girl." After a careful physical examination I was able to reassure her that no harm had been done, and advised her to confide to a female member of the family.

A young Dutch woman came to the Emergency Room with bruises and contusions. After some probing it appeared that she has been working in a sex-club to earn some easy money. On this particular night an ex-boyfriend of her best friend was physically abusing her friend in the club. Under the influence of cocaine she started punching the man, but got beaten up herself. A "normal" sex-club has bouncers who throw trouble makers out. I asked her whether they came to her help. She said that no one had lifted a finger to help her.

An Angolan refugee woman, living in Holland for six years, came to the Emergency Room because her husband had beaten her up. She had hematomas (blood clots in the tissue) on her right eye, back, right wrist, and several cuts, big and small, on her right leg, because her husband had pushed her through a glass window I asked her where she could go now and she replied that she would have to return home because she still had two small children there. I gave her an explicit letter to take to her GP or to the police. She already knew about shelters, but said that a shelter would not work for her since her children needed to go to school.

These are only some cases that stick out in my memory, but my colleagues and I encounter instances of domestic and other violence nearly every shift. One of my male colleagues told me a horrific story about a young boy of eleven years he had treated in our shock room. The boy had been playing with a girl in a park on a Saturday afternoon. A man came and beat up the two of them, left the boy for dead, then abused the girl and killed her. The boy was able to survive this ordeal by pretending to be dead. My colleague was very upset by how the boy had spoken of the experience. A child of such a young age should not know of these abuses or have to resort to this kind of survival strategy.

WHY SHOULD WE CARE?

After reading these stories it is easy to say that violence against women and children is a sin, a crime and should be stopped. The reality is that still too few people care or want to do anything about it. The fact is that violence happens in its diverse forms across the globe, and very few women are exempt. If one does not want or cannot bear to think of the acts of violence, one should at least think of the consequences. In general, violence causes extensive suffering and negative health consequences for a significant proportion of the female population more than 20% in most countries; it has a direct negative impact on several important health issues, including safe motherhood, family planning, and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS.

Here are some specific examples:

* In a three-year study of 1203 pregnant women in hospitals in Houston and Boston, United States, abuse during pregnancy was a significant risk factor for low birth weight, low maternal weight gain, infections and anaemia.

* In a study in Bombay, India, 20% of all pregnancies of adolescent abortion seekers occurred because of forced sex--10% from rape by a male domestic servant, 6% from incest, and 4% from other rapes.

* Research in Norway revealed that chronic pelvic pain is significantly associated with a history of domestic violence.

* In one study in Leon, Nicaragua, after accounting for other factors, researchers found that abused women were six times more likely to report experiencing mental distress than non-abused women were.

* One development strategy in Madras, India, nearly collapsed when women began to drop out because of the increased incidents of beatings from their husbands, a result of their participation in the development project.

* In Rwanda, sexual violence against women and girls was used as a weapon of war and genocide.

SO WHAT DO WE DO AS CHURCHES?

We say NO, no more.
Let's start now!