Women 'face horrific abuses'

2005-05-25 14:33

London - Women and girls faced "horrific" levels of abuse in 2004 worldwide, Amnesty International said in its annual human rights review on Wednesday, blaming widespread rape and violence on a mix of "indifference, apathy and impunity".

The London-based group said from honor killings carried out by the victims' families to sexual violence used as a weapon of war, abuse frequently went unpunished and survivors were often abandoned by their own communities.

Amnesty said it had sought in the past year to argue that violence against women in conflict situations was "an extreme manifestation of the discrimination and abuse they face in peacetime", notably domestic violence and sexual abuse.

"When political tensions degenerate into outright conflict, all forms of violence increase, including rape and other forms of sexual violence against women."

Armed groups, UN 'guilty of rapes'

The annual report, covering 131 countries, noted abuse across the world, but highlighted several grave examples: "In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), both armed groups and United Nations forces were guilty of rape - in Turkey, family abuse of women is widespread; in Darfur, Sudan, gang rape is systemic - and in Eastern Europe, economic need fuels the trafficking of women."

The Amnesty said in Darfur, where a local rebellion sparked a brutal government backlash, Khartoum-backed militias had staged mass rapes, including of schoolgirls, and "frequently abducted" local women into sexual slavery.

Tens of thousands of women and girls were also subject to rape and sexual slavery in the DRC, and as in Darfur, victims were often then abandoned by their husbands and families, "condemning them and their children to extreme poverty".

All parties in the ongoing conflicts in the eastern DRC had committed the abuses against women, including military and police officers, and United Nations peacekeepers charged with the protection of civilians.

Amnesty said the two African cases were "not exceptional".

Accumulating 'trophies of war'

According to UN report findings cited by the Amnesty, Latin America had the highest risk of all types of sexual victimisation.

In Colombia, the group said, security forces, left-wing rebels and paramilitaries targeted women and girls to "sow terror, wreak revenge on adversaries and accumulate 'trophies of war'".

In Turkey, between one-third and one-half of all women were estimated to be victims of physical violence by their families: raped, beaten, murdered or forced to commit suicide - while the country sorely lacked shelters and legal protection for victims.

Amnesty noted some progress in Ankara, with legal reforms that recognised marital rape as a crime and did away with the possibility that a rapist's prison sentence could be reduced or annulled if he agreed to marry his victim.

Authorities largely still failed to investigate most women's complaints of abuse.

- SAPA