Women’s Health Information

Domestic Violence is just not on!

White Ribbon Day is held internationally on the 25th November. It is a day that has been set aside as International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. It is a day that will be recognised each year around the world and it gives an opportunity for all departments, governments, businesses and community groups to focus on this problem that affects so many people in Australia and the world.

As I write this I am astounded to learn that one in four women will experience a violent relationship at some time during their lives. I personally have seen inside refuges for women because my daughter was there due to a violent relationship. Many of the women who go to these places to get away from the violence often return to the home only for it to happen again.

I grew up listening and witnessing domestic violence scenes and other events that even now are too painful to discuss but the memories always stay with you. It is easier to forgive some say, but it is hard as hell to forget….

I learnt that my daughter was being abused by her gambling boyfriend. He would beat her up because they ran out of money and he couldn’t feed his addiction. It angers me that he could attack a young girl of just eighteen because she couldn’t feed his addiction.

I didn’t know the full extent of that violence until she wrote her story for me which you can read here…

I know of many women who have suffered at the hands of men who think they have the right to overpower women, but at the same time it is not just those men that do this. Family members abuse women, and the children. But at least the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women is a start and hopefully all forms of domestic violence will be noticed more… and eliminated as much as possible…

Of course domestic violence is a terrible thing, the devastation it causes and the results can be fatal… and there are many casualties… which often include children. Emotional blackmail is another form of violence, although some many not recognise it as such…

However domestic violence and mental and emotional blackmail go hand in hand. Death threats, putting someone down, telling them they are not worthy of being cared for, scared into not saying anything, telling a woman or child that they will not be loved or cared for by others…

Scaring them into not walking out that door… it is all part of domestic violence…

For details on White Ribbon Day events or where to purchase a ribbon, visit UNIFEM Australia - White Ribbon Day

For more information on Eliminating Violence Against Women (White Ribbon Day) click here….

Toni

The World Health Organisation has discovered that one in six women suffer from domestic violence throughout the world, while other reports show one in four. However that is still a large number of women who suffers at the hands of men who think they have the right to hurt and control their partners either physically or emotionally or both…

This report shared throughout the world has been released on White Ribbon Day….

Toni…

One in six women suffers from domestic violence: WHO

One in six women worldwide suffers domestic violence - some battered during pregnancy - yet many remain silent about the assaults, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said.

In its first global study, the WHO also said physically- or sexually-abused women were more likely to suffer longer-term health problems, including distress and suicide attempts.

The United Nations agency called for changing behaviour through education programs and training more health workers and police to investigate signs of mistreatment.

“Women are more at risk from violence involving people they know at home than from strangers in the street. There is a feeling that the home is a safe haven and that pregnancy is a very protected period, but that is not the case,” WHO’s director-general Lee Jong-Wook told a news conference.

“Domestic violence remains largely hidden.”

The Women’s Health and Domestic Violence Against Women study is based on interviews with more than 24,000 women in 10 countries, ranging from Japan and Thailand to Ethiopia and Peru.

It paints a harrowing picture of broken bones, bruises, burns, cracked skulls, dislocated jaws, rape and fear. Husbands or intimate partners are the main perpetrators.

A Peruvian woman lost twins after being hit in the stomach by the father of her unborn babies, while a Brazilian sleeps in a locked bedroom to protect herself from the partner who has threatened to shoot her, according to the report.

Every 18 seconds

“Every 18 seconds, somewhere, a woman suffers violence or maltreatment … We must put an end to this shameful practice,” said Spain’s Health Minister Elena Salgado, current president of WHO’s annual health assembly.

Domestic violence can be sparked by dinner being late, not finishing the housework on time, disobeying or refusing to have sex, the report said. In many cases women agree that a man is justified in beating his wife under certain circumstances.

In terms of symptoms - pain, dizziness, mental distress, miscarriages - the findings across the 15 urban and rural settings were “remarkably consistent”, according to Claudia Garcia-Moreno, the study’s coordinator.

“Whether you are a cosmopolitan woman in Sao Paulo, Brazil or Japan, or a rural woman in Ethiopia or Peru, the association between violence and poor health remains,” she told reporters.

“The striking thing we found is the degree that this violence still remains hidden. Between one-fifth and two-thirds of women interviewed had never spoken before to anyone of the experience of their partner’s violence,” she added.

This sense of helplessness was “a torture in itself”.

Other countries covered in the seven-year study, issued to coincide with the UN’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, included Samoa, Bangladesh, Namibia, Tanzania and Serbia and Montenegro.

Between 4 and 12 per cent of women who had been pregnant reported being beaten during pregnancy - more than 90 per cent by the father of the unborn child, according to the report.

“Most of the violence that pregnant women were experiencing is a continuation of the violence going on before,” said Lori Heise, a member of the core research team from the Washington-based group PATH.

- Reuters