An unspeakable act of violence that almost took her life made her a household name.
On October 9th, 2012, fifteen-year-old Malala Yousafzai was on her way home from school when a Taliban gunman boarded her bus and shot her in the head. Why? Because she wanted an education and she spoke her mind about the fact that she thought other girls deserved one too. Her story tells you everything about what’s at stake when being a woman means your mind, your body, your dignity, and your very life are not your own.
Malala survived the brutal attack, and her attempted murder galvanized supporters of education in Pakistan, leading to the passage of the country’s first law guaranteeing education to all children from the ages of 5 to 16. Her voice wasn’t silenced. Malala has traveled the world fighting for the right of girls everywhere to go to school. Because of her courageous work, she has become the youngest person in history to win a Nobel Peace prize.
Why This Matters
When girls like Malala are free from violence, free to get an education, free to determine their own future, they amaze the world. This is not just a “women’s” issue – it’s a human rights issue, a public health issue, and an economic issue. When woman have control over their own bodies and their own destinies, economies are more likely to thrive.
Unfortunately, Malala’s brutal experience is not a rare one. Globally, one in three women will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. It takes a toll not just on the women violence happens to, but also on their loved ones, their community, in some cases even the economic stability and security of their nations as a whole.
Around The World
The Taliban’s brutality toward Malala was also an attempt to scare other girls from pursuing their own future. For many women, violence against them is about control. In the worse cases, it is used to turn girls and women into domestic or sexual slaves. Human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world, with more than 20 million adults and children being bought and sold worldwide. When it comes to sex trafficking, a whopping 98 percent of the victims are women and girls.
Though sex trafficking is a worldwide phenomenon, it is most pervasive in countries with weak justice systems, where perpetrators know they are unlikely to pay a price. Even if they are caught, the penalty will be light, making it well worth the risk. Traffickers also prey on those most vulnerable - the poor, the marginalized, the uneducated, the homeless, women without economic resources or connections to help them fight back.
One of the most egregious forms of violence occurs in places where tradition dictates that girls be made pure and marriageable by genital mutilation. Globally, more than 200 million girls and women alive today have been cut - most of them in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, where the practice is concentrated. It has no known health benefits but it can cause a women serious health complications that can last a lifetime – chronic pain, chronic pelvic infections, development of cysts, abscesses and genital ulcers, just to name a few. It can also cause severe psychological consequences, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. This violence is a form of control, since its goal is to ensure premarital virginity and marital fidelity. It is an extreme form of discrimination, enacted in places where inequality between the sexes is deeply rooted.
The United States
If you think human trafficking is something that only happens in the developing world, you are wrong. The United States is one of the top destinations for sex trafficking, and many children from the United States are trafficked to other industrialized nations, including the Netherlands, Germany, and Japan. Once girls or women are forced into the sex trafficking industry, it’s very hard for them to get out – fear, lack of money, lack of immigration documents, language barriers are all things that can keep them from breaking free. If they do survive and get out, they are likely to deal with long term health problems like HIV or or other sexually transmitted diseases, and post traumatic stress.
Access to health care and mental health services can help survivors cope with the aftermath of their trauma. Education and vocational training can open the door to economic opportunity, decreasing the likelihood that a survivor will fall prey to human traffickers again. Identifying at risk youth and providing them with support services can help prevent them from becoming victims in the first place.
Backbone Campaign / UltraViolet Guerrilla Light Projection Actions
For most women, violence will come at the hands of a man intimately close to her – her husband, her boyfriend, her father or stepfather. For others, it may happen on campus. One in five women are assaulted in the United States while they are at college. And more than 40 percent of the women who experience violence won’t seek any help at all. Most of those who do, turn not to the justice system, but to family and friends. Many believe that because of a pervasive rape culture, they won’t be believed or they will be blamed. Either way, they lose while those committing the crimes escape justice.
Education is key to preventing gender-based violence – raising awareness about the root causes, teaching young people how to build respectful relationships and changing cultural norms that encourage violence or aggressive behavior. On college campuses, training students to intervene or disrupt a potentially harmful situation can also prevent assaults from happening. For those who do experience violence, support networks can help them get the services they need while offering them a safe framework to speak up about the assault.
Our Approach
Women’s rights are human rights. Women deserve to live full and productive lives with dignity, to choose their own path free from exploitation, discrimination or violence directed at them simply because they were born female. When girls and women are empowered, everyone wins. Entire communities can be transformed. When women have influence in the public sphere, peace is more attainable and sustainable.
We seek to advance programs and policies that change cultural norms that discriminate against and repress women, that target at-risk girls before they become victims and boys before they become victimizers, that promote access to health, social support and justice.
Education for Prevention- Provide women and girls with tools and expertise to understand the root causes of violence in their communities
- Work with vulnerable youth to help them protect themselves from would-be exploiters
- Work with boys and men to change discriminatory norms and violent behaviors
- Advocate for gender equality, women’s rights, and ending gender-based violence
- Advocate for programs that help women out of poverty
- Increase access to health care, social support and the justice system
- Promote programs that help trafficking victims get free, recover and gain job skills
- Promote healing resources for victims
- Advocate for new laws that prevent trafficking and punish exploiters
- Promote holding “buyers” of commercial sex accountable
- Advocate globally for laws against domestic violence, marital rape and sexual harassment that comply with international standards
- Advocate for eliminating female genital mutilation
RESOURCES
Equality Now. "Global Sex Trafficking Fact Sheet."
Maverick Collective. "Impact - Maverick Collective."
Nick Anderson. The Washington Post. "1 In 5 Women Say They Were Violated."
UN Women. "Facts and Figures: Ending Violence against Women."
U.S. Agency for International Development. "Preventing and Responding to Gender-based Violence."
Women Win. "What Is Gender-based Violence (GBV)?"
World Health Organization. "Female Genital Mutilation."
PHOTO CREDIT
David Shankbone. "SlutWalk NYC October 2011 Shankbone 25."