what are the laws passed by somalia for fighting violence against women?
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Kenyan women demonstrate against rape in Darfur, Sudan: Violence against women is becoming an increasingly public issue across Africa.
Photograph: Associated Press / Khalil Senosi
The incident was not unusual in Africa. In December 1998 a Kenyan police officer, Felix Nthiwa Munayo, got home late and demanded meat for his dinner. There was none in the house. Enraged, he beat his wife, Betty Kavata. Paralyzed and brain-damaged, Ms. Kavata died five months later, on her 28th birthday.
But unlike many such cases, Ms. Kavata’s death did not pass in silence. The Kenyan media covered the story extensively. Images of the fatally injured woman and news of her death generated nationwide debate on domestic violence. There followed five years of protests, demonstrations and lobbying by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), as well as by outraged men and parliamentarians. Finally, the government passed a family protection bill criminalizing wife-beating and other forms of domestic violence.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), violence affects millions of women in Africa. In a 2005 study on women’s health and domestic violence, the WHO found that 50 per cent of women in Tanzania and 71 per cent of women in Ethiopia’s rural areas reported beatings or other forms of violence by husbands or other intimate partners.
In South Africa, reports Amnesty International, about one woman is killed by her husband or boyfriend every six hours. In Zimbabwe, six out of 10 murder cases tried in the Harare High Court in 1998 were related to domestic violence. In Kenya, the attorney general’s office reported in 2003 that domestic violence accounted for 47 per cent of all homicides.
‘No boundaries’
Domestic violence is a global problem. In Europe, estimates the WHO, violence in the home is the primary cause of injury and death for women aged 16–44, more lethal than road accidents or cancer. Indeed, “violence against women,” said then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1999, “knows no boundaries of geography, culture or wealth. It is perhaps the most shameful human rights violation.” And, he added, it is “perhaps the most pervasive.”
Violence against women goes beyond beatings. It includes forced marriage, dowry-related violence, marital rape, sexual harassment, intimidation at work and in educational institutions, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, forced sterilization, trafficking and forced prostitution.
Such practices cause trauma, injuries and death. Female genital cutting, for example, is a common cultural practice in parts of Africa. Yet it can cause “bleeding and infection, urinary incontinence, difficulties with childbirth and even death,” reports the WHO. The organization estimates that 130 million girls have undergone the procedure globally and 2 million are at risk each year, despite international agreements banning the practice.
Sexual violence is another problem. A local organization in Zaria, Nigeria, found that 16 per cent of patients with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) were girls under the age of five, a sign of sexual assault. In the single year 1990, the Genito-Urinary Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe, treated more than 900 girls under 12 for STDs. Such assaults, observes a WHO publication, put “African women and girls at higher risk of sexually transmitted diseases [including HIV/AIDS] than men and boys.”
Rooted in culture
Abusers of women tend to view violence as the only way to solve family conflicts, according to a 1999 study on violence against women by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health near Baltimore, US. Perpetrators typically have a history of violent behaviour, grew up in violent homes and often abuse alcohol and drugs.
The story of Janet Akinyi in Kenya is a case in point. In 2006 she filed for divorce and custody of her children after her husband attempted to kill her with a knife. She had endured violent beatings throughout her 10 years of marriage. “We used to be okay until he started drinking,” Ms. Akinyi told Africa Renewal. “Then he would get furious at anything and start beating me. He would say it is the o
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