Today, 25th November, is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. It is also the 10th anniversary of the Istanbul Convention, the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence.  To draw attention to this widespread human rights abuse, Members of our Group were joined by the town mayor to raise our Human Rights flag on the town's flagpole in the Millennium Garden. 

31 years ago, in 1993, the UN General Assembly issued The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women and defined violence against women as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.” 

Figures for England & Wales indicate that, every year, 1 in 12 women will be a victim of Violence Against Women & Girls (VAWG) and 1 in 20 adults in England and Wales will be a perpetrator.  We welcome our new government’s mission, in the UK, to halve violence against women and girls in a decade.

However, as Amnesty members, we are also thinking about the plight of women in many other parts of the world, many subject to other (additional) types of violence.  Globally, an estimated 736 million women (almost 1 in 3) have been subjected to physical and/or intimate sexual violence at least once in their life.  Other forms of violence include forcible marriage (in some countries for girls as young as 9), female genital mutilation, use of rape as a weapon of war, plus restrictions against women & girls, as experienced today in Afghanistan and Iran, which amounts to "gender apartheid". 

Worldwide, violence against women and girls remains one of the most prevalent and pervasive human rights violations.

That the most dangerous place for women is "Home", should give us pause for thought.