violence against women

 I moved away from Zimbabwe almost 15 years ago. In the early years I inhaled all the news I could; watching in shock as my home country descended into crisis. Each visit home and conversations with friends and family became about what used to be, and with that came a resignation of sorts to the status quo as we carried on with our lives.

What are the challenges to women’s security in the MENA region?

Responses catalog a host of concerns: eroding legal rights for women, economic vulnerability, rises in trafficking, and prostitution out of desperation. They also speak to a worrisome uptick in targeted violence against women–violence intended to scare women out of public spaces, out of politics, and back into the home. Over a third of the respondents named rape specifically as either a tool of war or intimidation, and another third denounced the rising number of mass sexual assault on women. 

The testimonies filed to a Nairobi court last week are difficult to read. A woman is raped in front of her daughter, first by police and then by looters. A student is dragged into the bush and has his foreskin cut off. A terrified woman hides under her bed as attackers scale her roof but they find her, beat her, then three men rape her.

It is estimated that up to seven in ten women globally will be beaten, raped, abused, or mutilated in their lifetimes. Violence against women is universal, and is prevalent in all countries and all settings. A gross human rights violation, it fractures families and communities and hampers development, also costing countries billions of dollars annually in healthcare costs and lost productivity...

Violent attacks on girls and women are nothing new. But two particularly shocking attacks on young women in 2012 have not only sparked widespread condemnation, they are also shaping the discussion on what follows the Millennium Development Goals.

Last month, Rwanda achieved something no other country had ever done before: produce a legislature in which women outnumber men. The results of last month's parliamentary elections gave women 45 out of the 80 seats in the chamber of deputies, or 56%. This surpasses Rwandan women's near parity in the outgoing parliament, already the highest proportion in the world.