In his compelling article, “One Girl’s Courage,” Nicholas D. Kristof exemplifies the importance of the International Violence Against Women Act through an anecdote about a rape victim in Sierra Leone. The act, brought on by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee headed by Hillary Clinton, would offer aid to victims of rape, domestic violence, honor killings and acid attacks, provide education to girls about the violence and enforce harsher punishment for attackers, both domestic and foreign. Kristof closely follows the account of one specific girl who decided to speak up against her attacker, only to be shut down by the legal system. It is because of girls like this all around the world that the act is most agreeable and should be enforced. The girls who are raped should have the right to see their attacker punished for what he has done and should not feel the shame themselves as most victims do. With this act, attackers will face harsher punishment which is what they deserve for taking innocence and trust in adult figures from a child. Kristof makes it extremely plain that passing this act will be beneficial to women all over the world.
“One Girl’s Courage” opens with the author, Nicholas Kristof, and actress Eva Mendes, a strong advocate against violence towards women, meeting with three and four year old girls who are the victims of rape in Sierra Leon. Kristof then goes on to recount one specific girl named Fulamatu, 15 years old, who was a victim of a particularly cruel rape by a pastor in her community. Fulamatu, who dreams of attending a university, unlike most girls in her small remote town, somehow gained the courage to speak out against the pastor who, come to find out, had raped numerous other little girls in her vill...
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...tage of. Without this act, thousands of girls have to deal with the shame of rape and the knowledge that the men who brutalized them are still rampant and destroying other lives. Just looking at a girl you may never know that she has been the victim of rape or molestation and she may never seek help for what has happened to her. Consequently, these girls must be avenged and something must be done to ensure that those who toss and turn at night and hide their emotions as well as those like Fulamatu who wish to convict their attackers can rest easy knowing that less rape and violence will plague the world. Any girl who has lost her innocence without consent will agree that more needs to be done to stop those who think they can just go on hurting others without consequence. This is why the International Violence Against Women Act needs to be passed once and for all.
I was a little confused about the topic/policy to choose for this assignment. I know that there are various types of policies which cover a range of topics. I decided that I wanted to cover either immigration or women. I decided that the policy I will be constructing my research paper over, will be the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). I had first heard about this policy in my Introduction to Social Work class and I was really interested by this topic. the professor just included a brief explanation of the VAWA Act. Once I saw this policy as one of the examples you provided in the email you sent to the class, I decided that this was the perfect
For centuries, a great deal of ethnic groups have been disempowered and persecuted by others. However, one should realize that none are more intense than the oppression of women. In the novel, The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, women living in the Mango Street neighborhood suffer from their restricted freedom. Three such women, Rafaela, Mamacita, and Sally, provide great examples. All try to escape from their dreadful environment. Most of them fail, but at first, Sally seems to succeed in escaping from her father. However, she ends up meeting a husband as equally bad as her father. Ultimately, the men who live with Rafaela, Mamacita, and Sally act as insuperable obstacles that limit the freedom in their women’s lives.
On September 5, 1995, Hillary Clinton delivered an influential speech at The Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. Clinton expresses general concern over escalating violence toward women, in other word’s gendercide. “Gendercide refers to the systematic elimination of a specific gender group, normally female. It’s most common in India, China, and other regions in Southeast Asia” (GirlsKind Foundation). Crimes, such as bride trafficking, infanticide, abandonment, and dowry related murder; often take place within private households, going unnoticed and not even acknowledged. “Tragically, women are most often the ones whose human rights are violated. Even now, in the late 20th century, the rape of women continues to be used as an instrument of armed conflict Women and children make up a large majority of the world’s refugees” (Clinton 3). By addressing her speech in Beijing, where gendercide is prevalent, Hillary expressed her objective effectively not just the United Nations, but to audiences across the world. Clinton effectively delivered her speech by portraying her purpose for women to achieve equality and better opportunities, with ethical appeals, emotional appeals, and logical appeals.
In chapter 8 of Global Issues, Local Arguments, June Johnson exposes the concept that women are being used as a tactic and war as well as being sexually abused. In “Defending Human Rights: Human Trafficking, Forced Child Labor, and Rape as a Weapon of War, (384-439)”developing countries women are being treated unfairly as well having little say in the government leading to a delay in fixing the issue. Johnson also includes “Ten Radical Acts for Congo the New Year (434-41).” These issues were caused by the end of slavery and thus leading to people needing a new source of workers. The effects of the Ill treatment consist of children and women dying. Many stake holders to fixing the problem is to involve the women in the government. Unless stakeholders
Parrot is an expert in cultural practices and the risks encountered in attempting to change them. She is currently writing a book on the topic with Nina Cummings, health educator and victim advocate at Gannett University Health Services at Cornell. Forsaken Figures: The Global Brutalization, Oppression, and Violence against Women catalogues, describes, and analyzes all manner of violence, subjugation, and gendercide against women from a global perspective. Many practices and cultural norms around the world, such as female genital mutilation, sexual slavery, and feticide/infanticide of female babies, are perceived as wrong by outside cultures, Parrot says. She is interested in determining how outside policymakers might begin to address what they see as problems when their own cultural language is vastly different from that of the communities and countries in which the practices are tolerated or even supported.
In the single year of 2009, there were 460,000 reported incidents of sexual assault against women in Canada (“Criminal Victimization in Canada” 1). Amnesty International once stated that aggression against women “is so deeply embedded in society that it often fails to garner public censure and outrage.” This is evidenced by the fact that only roughly 10% of all sexual assaults are revealed, and to exacerbate the circumstances, women are frequently repudiated, blamed, and dispensed apathetic or cruel manipulation (“Violence Against Women Information” 1). Women’s rights are constantly defiled through domestic violence, and yet it is still abounding and ubiquitous in developed countries. Indeed, every six days, a woman in Canada is brutally killed by the one whom she considered her loving male partner. With every year that passes, approximately 362,000 children are witness to violent parental episodes in Canada. Witnessing violence can disturb the development of children and can eventuate in
Violence against women has been occurring throughout society since the dawn of time. It is hard for the law to stop it going on because the women are either to scared to come forward or the women feel it is their fault so they deserve the beating. This sort of violence is predominately in homes and between families. In many ways it would be quite hard for the legal system to stop it because not a lot of people know that it is going on. However the legal system has done some work to stop violence against women.
Sofia Coppola’s movie, The Virgin Suicides, 1999, brings to the forefront the reality of what life is like for five oppressed teenage girls living in suburbia in the mid-70’s. After examining numerous articles, a few of them made an impact on my perspective. The first of many articles is Todd Kennedy’s piece, Off with Hollywood’s Head: Sofia Coppola as Feminine Auteur. Kennedy discusses how Coppola has a tendency to lean toward directing films that cater toward females’ interest, either because of the visual imagery or women’s feelings of connectedness with the characters. The author reveals that The Virgin Suicides portrays women as becoming dominated by the environment surrounding them. The author gives an interesting point of view when he claims, “The film tells a story of the five Lisbon sisters whose identities exist only insofar as they are defined as the objects of the masculine desire” (44). Furthermore, the Kennedy asserts how the film serves as a prolonged exploration into the degree to which female characters are idealized, objectified, and defined by the image that the film- and their society- imposes upon them.
In addition to this many women are also ashamed to report that they were was sexually assaulted because they fear they will be shamed by their family just the same as the community. As stated by Gurvinder Kalra and Dinesh Bhugra,“In sociocentrism societies where shame is a more prevalent emotion, the victims of sexual violence may not open up about their trauma and hence may not report it.” A single act of sexual abuse can affect women’s perspective toward the world and affect her performance in her private and work life. This problem of rape could also lead to more greater problems such as trafficking and prostitution. In fact, Prostitution of women, girls, and boys is perceived to have increased in post-war Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone is a transit and destination country for trafficking of women and girls for the purpose of sexual exploitation. According, to the US Department of State, Victims originate mostly from rural provinces and are recruited to urban and mining centers for operation in prostitution, domestic slavery, and forced labor in artisanal diamond and granite mining, petty trading, portering, rock breaking, street crime, and begging. Trafficking victims may also be found in
“Such an approach helps focus attention on current and emerging threats to the security and well-being of individuals and communities” (UN 2014). Moreover, women are important when it comes to negotiating peace agreements, planning refugee camps, and peacekeeping operations, as well as reconstructing war-torn societies (UNIFEM 2004). A Feminist’s perspective in security studies challenges the focus on military solutions and pushes attention towards addressing structural problems, additionally, they believe in prevention rather than intervention; e.g. civilian solutions rather than military solutions. Feminist’s goals are to resolve issues within the state first. They try to identify the collective needs of the human kind. Human security helps one understand how gender and violence relate. The indication of human security allowed UNIFEM and UN women to work in post-conflict situations which brought people to work together in humanitarian affairs, development, and unquestionably security. Involving more women in International Relations could be a better influence for the world and have positive results but only if both genders
Women face myriad forms of violence today and throughout history. Both Anita Hill and Nafissa Diallo were forced to experience this violence in the form of sexual harassment and rape. Their cases did not follow the same pattern any other criminal case would, it turned into a circus of “he said, she said” for both women. Because of their intersectional identities as women of color etc., their evidence did not hold up against the evidence of the powerful men who wronged them. Sexual violence against women has long been an issue dominated by male opinions and decisions, and these examples only prove how ideologies surrounding sexual violence from far in the past are still in place today, disempowering women.
I am a 19-year-old girl, far too old to think I know everything. I don’t pretend to be an expert on rape. Having known the feel of a cold blade pressed to my side gave me no superior understanding of the crime, only a small scar to remember it by. Thus I offer you no solution. I cannot say with any conviction that my writing will help to save even one person from being subjected to a similar fate. Before you’ve read to the bottom of this page three more girls will be sexually assaulted, one girl will be raped. Neither the eloquence of my words, nor the fervor of my voice will have changed a thing.
In today’s globalized world, women’s studies is emerging as a fast growing discipline which is not restricted any more to the academia but is significantly capturing the attention of the civil society. The way civil society responded to “Nirbhaya” gang-rape case of December, 2012 in Delhi; the way people came on the streets in protest against this horrific and barbarous crime committed against a 23 year old woman; this people’s movement has undoubtedly engineered the emergence of a new consciousness among us about the need for a realization of women’s honour and dignity in the society. There have been serious debates on the issue of whether more stringent laws (in the line of Shari’a law) be implemented in our Indian society so that such heinous crimes against women can be prevented. However, the aforesaid incident is only one among many hundred other such crimes happening everyday in almost every corner of the globe. Many such incidents of crime are either suppressed or do not come to limelight. The following analysis is a humble attempt to deal with the status of women (especially in Islam) in a globalized world.
Our children are both the victims and, as seen from last year's headlines, the perpetrators of violent crimes. Although there is a sharp increase in violence among girls and women, females continue to be more often victims than perpetrators of crime in our society. In a Harvard University Violence Against Women class presentation, Nancy Issac and Deborah Prothrow-Stith reported that four million women in the U.S. are severely abused every year by their spouse or partner. And 26 percent of all females who were victims of murder were slain by husbands or boyfriends, while three percent of male victims were killed...
In conclusion, violence against women is a difficult problem to solve. This is not always under control to be able to fix at all. But people will always have the most reasonable resolutions. I hope that this issue will soon be resolved smoothly so that all of the women will no longer have to suffer from those pains.