Violence against women shockingly common

What is your church doing about violence against women? Often violence is justified by religious teaching of all faiths. Can church be part of the solution? NPR reviews a current report on violence against women:

WHO Finds Violence Against Women Is ‘Shockingly’ Common

Thirty-five percent of women around the world have been raped or physically abused, according to statistics the World Health Organization released Thursday. About 80 percent of the time this violence occurs in the home, at the hands of a partner or spouse. “For me personally, this is a shockingly high figure,” says Karen Devries, an epidemologist from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “The levels of violence are very high everywhere.”

Devries and a team at the WHO analyzed data from 141 studies in 81 countries. Their findings offer the first comprehensive look at domestic violence globally and give insights into how abuse hurts women’s overall health. “The main message is that this problem affects women everywhere,” Devries says. Because of the stigma associated with rape and abuse, “some of our findings may underestimate the prevalence.”

When women are murdered, a partner or spouse is the killer 38 percent of the time, the study finds. By comparison, men die at the hands of a wife or partner only 6 percent of the time. Domestic violence not only kills some women; it also leaves others with long-standing mental and physical health problems.

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“There is no magic bullet, no vaccine or pill” for rape and abuse, Garcia-Moreno says. “But what we hear from women is that oftentimes, just having an empathetic listener who can provide some practical support and help her get access to some other services — that in itself is an important intervention.”

See map of Prevalence of rape and domestic violence in each region of the world below:

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