Women and violence

This book highlights the extent of the problem through the experiences and analysis of individual women and groups from over 30 countries as diverse as Papua New Guinea, Argentina, Tanzania, France, Scotland, Bosnia, India, and Tibet. Broadly divided by theme, their writings examine the incidence of domestic violence and child sexual abuse, sexual harassment in the workplace, rape and torture in war, genital mutilation, and the effects of male violence on women's reproductive health. But this is also a positive and inspiring book. The pieces are illustrated throughout by a collection of cartoons and posters which attests to the wealth of activity generated by grassroots women's organizations throughout the world. The authors assess the efforts being made worldwide to find solutions, such as the introduction of women's police stations in Brazil and Pakistan, strategies to change the law in the USA and Bangladesh, and population education projects in Canada, Jamaica, and Australia. Violence against women is a global problem. Over the past twenty years women have campaigned vigorously against abuses such as wife-beating, rape and sexual harassment. More recently, persistent lobbying by feminists from both North and South has succeeded in establishing official international recognition of gender-based violence as a fundamental violation of human rights. Yet throughout the world it remains very much a hidden problem, the scale of which is vastly underestimated everywhere.