'End violence against women'

2004-03-05 14:12

London - Atrocities against women including rape, murder, and mutilation must be stopped, human rights watchdog Amnesty International said on Friday, reporting that one in three women in the world will suffer serious violence in their lifetime.

"Violence against women is a 'cancer' eating away at the core of every society, in every country of the world," Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan said as she launched a new campaign to tackle the problem.

"Violence against women is a human rights atrocity. From the battlefield to the bedroom, women are at risk. Governments are failing to address the real 'terror' of our world that millions of women face every day," said Khan.

In kicking off the campaign, Amnesty presented a 122-page report outlining the scale of violence against women - some of whom are "denied the right to ever exist" - and calling for urgent action and changes to international law.

The report pointed in particular at the need for governments to address "cultural" practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM) and so-called "honour" killings.

One in three women will suffer violence in their lifetime and each year two million girls aged between five and 15 are introduced into the commercial sex market and 700 000 women and girls are trafficked for sexual exploitation, Amnesty said.

Around 135 million girls and women globally are estimated to have undergone FGM and a further two million girls a year are at risk of undergoing the treatment, the statistics showed.

"Armed conflict is having a devastating and desperate impact on women that goes far beyond the inherent violence of war," Khan said, adding that civilian women and girls were often mutilated, raped and murdered as a weapon of war.

"Violence against women is not normal, legal nor acceptable and should never be tolerated or justified. It can and must be stopped," she said.

- AFP