A new report from the World Health Organisation has drawn together data from dozens of studies and found that worldwide, 35% of women have experienced violence – and that the consequences for their and that the consequences for their health can be devastating.
Indian women attend a prayer ceremony for a rape victim. Though rape has become a prominent issue in India, it’s certainly not the only country where violence against women is an issue Photograph: Adnan Abidis/Reuters
Most women know their attackers. 35% of women worldwide have experienced violence and, according to a new report from the World Health Organisation (WHO), that figure only falls to 30% when they studied violence against women that was by intimate partners.
This is the first time that WHO have gathered this worldwide data by pulling together dozens of national and regional studies. Here, we look at which women are most likely to be experience violence and how their health is affected as a result.
Regional differences
Though violence against women is undoubtedly a universal problem, the WHO research suggests that there are regional patterns in its prevalence. It finds that women in Africa are almost twice as likely to experience violence than women in Europe – a particularly striking finding given that ‘women’ are defined in the study as females aged 15 and over.
However, the term ‘Europe’ may be slightly misleading here. Only Europe’s low and middle-income countries are included (from Albania to Ukraine) while countries like the UK and France are grouped together with those from other regions in the ‘High Income’ category.
Types of violence
Violence by an intimate partner and violence by someone other than a woman’s partner are both considered in this report – although the two differ hugely in their prevalence.
The fact that 38% of all murders of women worldwide are committed by intimate partners stands out as one of the most startling figures in the entire report..
Most violence against women worldwide, whether sexual or not, is committed by their intimate partners. In South-East Asia for example, women are almost eight times more likely to experience violence by a current or former partner than someone else. Looking at the ratio between partner and non-partner violence makes these trends more explicit.
Health consequences
The report catalogues the disastrous consequences that violence has on women’s physical, mental and sexual and reproductive health. Many of these are complex and not immediately evident, but their impact is often enormous.
Non-fatal injuries are one of the most direct effects of violence. The report uses the USA as an example where half of women in abusive relationships are physically injured by their partners and that most of them sustain multiple types of injuries – the head, neck and face being the most common, followed by muscular, skeletal and genital injuries.
Several studies identified that women with a history of intimate partner violence are 16% more likely to have a low-birth-weight baby and twice as likely to report having had an induced abortion – nearly half of which globally take place in unsafe conditions. What’s more, when compared with women who have not experienced partner violence, those that have are 1.5 times more likely to acquire HIV.
Every study that looked at the relationship between intimate partner violence and harmful alcohol use found a positive correlation between the two – although substance abuse may also be linked mental health disorders which also increase a woman’s vulnerability to violence.
Depression and suicide was also consistently cited as a severe health consequence of violence against women. Traumatic stress is the mechanism most likely to explain the fact that depression rates are double for women who have experienced violence.
Conflict and violence against women
Several studies have explored how violence against women rises in times of conflict. In March this year Maplecroft, a risk analytics company, analysed the risk of sexual violence in conflict across 15 years using indicators such as the “systematic use of sexual violence as a weapon of war”.
Click to view full map. Source: Maplecroft 2013
Their findings may shed light on some of the regional trends in violence against women. Of the ten countries where the risk of sexual violence in conflict was highest, seven were in Africa.
The problem has also been recognised by the UN who have a specificcampaign called Stop Rape Now aimed at ending sexual violence in conflict.
Today’s report sheds light on not only how widespread violence against women is – but also the deep effect it has on their health. By highlighting the connection between violence and health, WHO has marked the first step in a public health response.
Today’s meditation is on the Gospel reading from the Lectionary found in Forward Day by Day. I’ve always loved this image, this humble, poor woman who gives what little she has.
THURSDAY, June 20
Luke 20:41—21:4. Jesus looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the treasury; he also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. He said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them; for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on.”
There is something about generosity that is compelling. Jesus says that the poor widow has given out of her poverty, but in reality it is only she who has given out of her abundance—an inner abundance of the heart that allows her to behave almost recklessly, as if she had more than enough.
I was taught to save those pennies, to save them for a rainy day, and it can still keep me looking to the horizon for any sign of clouds. My spouse, admittedly, has a much better relationship to money: it’s not about having or not having, but about knowing the relative value of wealth; it is energy to be moved around, rather than bankable power or security. Above all, it is a potent way to extend and manifest generosity.
As we see in the widow’s mite, it’s not the amount, but the heart’s intention behind it that matters. That is where the real power lies.
(Play the video of the Soweto Gospel Choir as you read this summary from today’s Lectionary Readings How I would love to be able to attend this festival!)
BERNARD MIZEKI
CATECHIST AND MARTYR IN AFRICA (18 JUNE 1896)
Bernard Mizeki was born in Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique) in about 1861. When he was twelve or a little older, he left his home and went to Capetown, South Africa, where for the next ten years he worked as a laborer, living in the slums of Capetown, but (perceiving the disastrous effects of drunkenness on many workers in the slums) firmly refusing to drink alcohol, and remaining largely uncorrupted by his surroundings. After his day’s work, he attended night classes at an Anglican school.
Under the influence of his teachers, from the Society of Saint John the Evangelist (SSJE, an Anglican religious order for men, popularly called the Cowley Fathers), he became a Christian and was baptized on 9 March 1886. Besides the fundamentals of European schooling, he mastered English, French, high Dutch, and at least eight local African languages. In time he would be an invaluable assistant when the Anglican church began translating its sacred texts into African languages.
After graduating from the school, he accompanied Bishop Knight-Bruce to Mashonaland, a tribal area in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), to work there as a lay catechist. In 1891 the bishop assigned him to Nhowe, the village of paramount-chief Mangwende, and there he built a mission-complex. He prayed the Anglican hours each day, tended his subsistence garden, studied the local language (which he mastered better than any other foreigner in his day), and cultivated friendships with the villagers. He eventually opened a school, and won the hearts of many of the Mashona through his love for their children.
He moved his mission complex up onto a nearby plateau, next to a grove of trees sacred to the ancestral spirits of the Mashona. Although he had the chief’s permission, he angered the local religious leaders when he cut some of the trees down and carved crosses into others. Although he opposed some local traditional religious customs, Bernard was very attentive to the nuances of the Shona Spirit religion. He developed an approach that built on people’s already monotheistic faith in one God, Mwari, and on their sensitivity to spirit life, while at the same time he forthrightly proclaimed the Christ. Over the next five years (1891-1896), the mission at Nhowe produced an abundance of converts.
Many black African nationalists regarded all missionaries as working for the European colonial governments. During an uprising in 1896, Bernard was warned to flee. He refused, since he did not regard himself as working for anyone but Christ, and he would not desert his converts or his post.
On 18 June 1896, he was fatally speared outside his hut. His wife and a helper went to get food and blankets for him. They later reported that, from a distance, they saw a blinding light on the hillside where he had been lying, and heard a rushing sound, as though of many wings. When they returned to the spot his body had disappeared. The place of his death has become a focus of great devotion for Anglicans and other Christians, and one of the greatest of all Christian festivals in Africa takes place there every year around the feast day that marks the anniversary of his martyrdom, June 18.
When I start to fret about those in high places who oppress the poor and the workers, whose lives are so far from worrying about a roof over their head and food to eat that they will pass still laws further oppressing the poor and homeless, I take consolation in this psalm.
The Pensacola City Council is passing a draconian measure against the homeless. I’ve been so proud of Pensacola, and the citizen response to the homeless, the beds Pensacola provides, the meals the citizens, through a variety of church and social agencies, hand out. Their response is humane, and compassionate.
The homeless are attracted by the moderate climate; they are here in droves. They panhandle at the intersections, they approach you at downtown attractions. They often have dogs. For the most part, they greet people cheerfully or respectfully, and they aren’t aggressive.
They are, in truth, a kind of plague on Pensacola, but as a traveler, I have brushed my teeth in many a restroom, changed my clothes, even had to rise out a coffee stained outfit before my next flight once – these are things for which the homeless will be charged with an offense against the law. If I were without a place for the night, I might look for a safe public restroom in which to sleep, especially if I had a child with me, as so many women did when I worked with homeless women.
I understand the problem.
But I also understand the desperation of those who have little, and that very little – a public restroom, a safe place to sleep outdoors – are being taken away from them by this statute. It’s heartless, and if there is truly an accounting at the end of our lives, and an afterlife, I fear for those who put additional burdens on the poorest of the poor.
Psalm 37
Of David.
1 Do not fret because of the wicked;
do not be envious of wrongdoers,
2 for they will soon fade like the grass,
and wither like the green herb.
3 Trust in the Lord, and do good;
so you will live in the land, and enjoy security.
4 Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.
6 He will make your vindication shine like the light,
and the justice of your cause like the noonday.
7 Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him;
do not fret over those who prosper in their way,
over those who carry out evil devices.
8 Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath.
Do not fret—it leads only to evil.
9 For the wicked shall be cut off,
but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.
10 Yet a little while, and the wicked will be no more;
though you look diligently for their place, they will not be there.
11 But the meek shall inherit the land,
and delight in abundant prosperity.
12 The wicked plot against the righteous,
and gnash their teeth at them;
13 but the Lord laughs at the wicked,
for he sees that their day is coming.
14 The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows
to bring down the poor and needy,
to kill those who walk uprightly;
15 their sword shall enter their own heart,
and their bows shall be broken.
16 Better is a little that the righteous person has
than the abundance of many wicked.
17 For the arms of the wicked shall be broken,
but the Lord upholds the righteous.
18 The Lord knows the days of the blameless,
and their heritage will abide for ever;
19 they are not put to shame in evil times,
in the days of famine they have abundance.
20 But the wicked perish,
and the enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures;
they vanish—like smoke they vanish away.
21 The wicked borrow, and do not pay back,
but the righteous are generous and keep giving;
22 for those blessed by the Lord shall inherit the land,
but those cursed by him shall be cut off.
23 Our steps* are made firm by the Lord,
when he delights in our* way;
24 though we stumble,* we* shall not fall headlong,
for the Lord holds us* by the hand.
25 I have been young, and now am old,
yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken
or their children begging bread.
26 They are ever giving liberally and lending,
and their children become a blessing.
27 Depart from evil, and do good;
so you shall abide for ever.
28 For the Lord loves justice;
he will not forsake his faithful ones.
The righteous shall be kept safe for ever,
but the children of the wicked shall be cut off.
29 The righteous shall inherit the land,
and live in it for ever.
30 The mouths of the righteous utter wisdom,
and their tongues speak justice.
31 The law of their God is in their hearts;
their steps do not slip.
32 The wicked watch for the righteous,
and seek to kill them.
33 The Lord will not abandon them to their power,
or let them be condemned when they are brought to trial.
34 Wait for the Lord, and keep to his way,
and he will exalt you to inherit the land;
you will look on the destruction of the wicked.
35 I have seen the wicked oppressing,
and towering like a cedar of Lebanon.*
36 Again I* passed by, and they were no more;
though I sought them, they could not be found.
37 Mark the blameless, and behold the upright,
for there is posterity for the peaceable.
38 But transgressors shall be altogether destroyed;
the posterity of the wicked shall be cut off.
39 The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord;
he is their refuge in the time of trouble.
40 The Lord helps them and rescues them;
he rescues them from the wicked, and saves them,
because they take refuge in him.
My friends and I had an animated conversation about Florida politics as we sat around the table having a late breakfast at Adonna’s Bakery, down on Palafox in Pensacola. We were explaining how in the last election, if it were not for the voters handbook the League of Women Voters published, explaining exactly what a yes or no vote would mean for each proposed amendment, Florida would be stuck with constitutional amendments voters never intended to approve.
The League of Women Voters cuts through all the baloney and explains the issues, clearly and objectively. Without their clear, cool voice of reason, voters would be blown to and fro by the turbulent election rhetoric which blows at hurricane force during each election in Florida, obscuring the clearest issues. The League is neither liberal nor conservative, but contains members of all parties. Their goal is getting people to vote, and to understand the issue on which people are voting.
So grown up. So mature. So wise and clear sighted. Way too grown up for me, all these years, until, after that conversation, one of these friends sent me an invitation she had received for an upcoming League of Women Voters annual luncheon. As an added attraction, a local NPR reporter would be the speaker.
I hate meetings. It brings out the ADD child in me; I fidget, I wish I were anywhere but in the meeting.
And yet . . . this is a group I have long admired, and I want to support them. So I agreed, and we attended.
It was so much fun. These women – and men, about a fifth of the attendees were men – are people focused on ISSUES. They have study groups for how juveniles in the local area are arrested and treated in our jails and custodial facilities. They have groups which study the impact on the environment of legislative and local government decisions. They go to civic meetings, speak out, and report back to the League. This is a group of people who take positions and recommend actions! Exciting stuff.
You know I am a believer, so I might see things differently from you, or others, but I met some really cool members, people I believe I was meant to meet. One said wonderful things about my son as he practices his profession. There is no Mother’s Day gift on earth that means as much as the words she spoke, praising his ethics and integrity.
An elderly man sitting next to me was leaving this week to go to Heidelberg.
“Are you going for the closing down?” I asked, and told him I had graduated from Heidelberg American high school, lo, these many years ago. “Yes,” he replied, he has family who have lived there many years, and he has been back many times. It led to a discussion around the table, where I discovered two other women who had been in DoDs schools in Germany. What an unexpected blessing!
Every now and then, as you lead your life, you get the feeling you are exactly where you are meant to be at this very moment, and I had that feeling as I left the meeting. I am so thankful for the serendipity that led me there, and for the rush of blessings the meeting provided.
LOL, the group I thought might be stuffy and staid played this wonderful Lady Gaga video:
Behold — a way to capture a maximum amount of solar power in one of the sunniest regions on the planet.
Located in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates that cozy up to the Persian Gulf in the Middle East, Abu Dhabi announced the opening of the Shams 1 solar plant last month. Shams 1, which translates to “the Sun” in Arabic, according to the BBC, utilizes more than 250,000 mirrors to capture and harness the power of the sun.
Officials in Abu Dhabi hope the new plant will save 175,000 tons of carbon dioxide every year, reports an NPR blog. That’s the equivalent of removing 15,000 cars from the road, they say, and several more of these mega-plants are in the works.
The other reason for building the Shams 1? The country will be able to export more of their vast natural oil reserves instead of using it within the country. It will lead to even more profit for the UAE, says Bloomberg. The plant cost $750 million to build, but according to the report, it’s just the first step in a plan to generate one-third of the country’s energy from solar power by the year 2032.
CANBERRA (Reuters) – The summer ice melt in parts of Antarctica is at its highest level in 1,000 years, Australian and British researchers reported on Monday, adding new evidence of the impact of global warming on sensitive Antarctic glaciers and ice shelves.
Researchers from the Australian National University and the British Antarctic Survey found data taken from an ice core also shows the summer ice melt has been 10 times more intense over the past 50 years compared with 600 years ago.
“It’s definitely evidence that the climate and the environment is changing in this part of Antarctica,” lead researcher Nerilie Abram said.
Abram and her team drilled a 364-metre (400-yard) deep ice core on James Ross Island, near the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, to measure historical temperatures and compare them with summer ice melt levels in the area.
They found that, while the temperatures have gradually increased by 1.6 degrees Celsius (2.9 degrees Fahrenheit) over 600 years, the rate of ice melting has been most intense over the past 50 years.
That shows the ice melt can increase dramatically in climate terms once temperatures hit a tipping point.
“Once your climate is at that level where it is starting to go above zero degrees, the amount of melt that will happen is very sensitive to any further increase in temperature you may have,” Abram said.
Robert Mulvaney, from the British Antarctic Survey, said the stronger ice melts are likely responsible for faster glacier ice loss and some of the dramatic collapses from the Antarctic ice shelf over the past 50 years.
Their research was published in the Nature Geoscience journal.
So cool! I found this article this morning on Weather Underground. I’m shocked – camels originated in North America?
Giant Camels Once Roamed the Arctic
By: Tanya Lewis
Published: March 5, 2013
Camels are the poster animals for the desert, but researchers now have evidence that these shaggy beasts once lived in the Canadian High Arctic.
The fossil remains of a 3.5-million-year-old camel were found on Ellesmere Island in Canada’s northernmost territory, Nunavut. The camel was about 30 percent bigger than modern camels and was identified using a technique called collagen fingerprinting. The finding, detailed today (March 5) in the journal Nature Communications, suggests that modern camels stemmed from giant relatives that lived in a forested Arctic that was somewhat warmer than today.
“It’s the first evidence that camels were ever there,” lead study author and paleobiologist Natalia Rybczynski of the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa told LiveScience.”It is surprising because usually we associate camels with arid and semi-arid habitats.”
Camels, which belong to the Camelus genus, originated in North America during the Eocene period about 45 million years ago, and later crossed to Eurasia over the Bering Isthmus, a landbridge between Alaska and Russia. Their closest relatives are llamas, alpacas, vicunas and guanacos.
The researchers found about 30 pieces of bone that were part of a camel’s tibia, or shinbone. The fossil’s location moves the known range of North American camels northward by about 745 miles.
The camel’s identity and age were determined via collagen fingerprinting, a technique that measures the amount of a bone protein called Type I collagen. Different mammals have characteristic amounts of this protein, which survives longer than many other biological molecules in the body.
The team dated the fossil to roughly 3.5 million years ago, a period known as the mid-Pliocene warm period. The global temperature was about 3.5 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than today, Rybczynski said, and about 33 degrees F warmer where the camel was found, with temperatures averaging around 30 degrees F. The Canadian High Arctic was forested then.
The fossil specimen closely resembles modern dromedary camels, based on the fingerprinting, but was about a third larger in size. It also bears similarity to the giant Yukon camels that lived about 1,240 miles away from the site where the ancient camel bones were discovered.
The researchers plan to continue searching for camel remains in the High Arctic. “We hope to find more,” Rybczynski said.
“We’re going to drive ‘all the way’ out there,” AdventureMan tells me and we laugh, because ‘all the way’ is such a relative term. When we lived in Kuwait and in Qatar, we would drive a minimum 30 minutes to get to a restaurant, any restaurant, not only because of distances but also because of traffic, horrendous traffic, in the evenings. While the Seafood Platter Deli is 13 miles away, it takes us less than 20 minutes to get there. Welcome to Pensacola 🙂
This is a very unusual restaurant. It is so old-timey Gulf Seacoast, and at the same time, I thought as we entered “My Moslem friends would love this!”
Many of my Moslem friends think Americans are unbelievers. They think we don’t talk about God. They don’t know we pray – sometimes without ceasing. Just as I was astounded as I learned things about Islam and Moslem culture living in the Middle East, they were also astounded learning things about us, like that we take care of our families. Think about it – most of what many people in the world know about Americans comes from the impact of cable TV. They watch American TV and they think they understand American culture. Horrifying thought, isn’t it?
So how amazing is it to walk into a restaurant where, as you stand at the counter to order, and you look at the big menu on the wall, there is a stand, with a bible on it. And there is paper, and a pencil, and a sign saying “Prayer requests.” I don’t know about your restaurant experiences, but this is unique in my experience – in America. In the Middle East, there are all kinds of restaurants with Qu’ranic verses on the walls, and the sounds of religious services piped into the restaurant. People talk about God all the time. It’s a whole different world; and my Moslem friends would feel right at home in the Seafood Platter Deli.
Of course, in Saudi Arabia, we would rush to buy our pre-sunset felafels, and then sit and munch, listening to all the souk grates coming down as shops closed for the Mahgrib prayer. Everything closed, five times a day, in Saudi Arabia, for prayer.
At the Gulf Coast Seafood Deli / Seafood Platter Deli (I don’t know what the real name is, and both names appear when you Google it) there are scriptures on the wall. When you sit down, the little basket holding condiments tells you to “count your blessings.”
The interior dining room (as opposed to the deli section, and the counter where you order food when you come in) is wall-to-wall sea mural, family friendly, Fish and sea life everywhere. There are also families who pray when their meal is delivered to the table, before they eat. The wait-staff is patient, and personal. You get the impression they truly want you to have a good experience at this restaurant.
We were hungry. We are mildly disgruntled to see piping hot food delivered to tables around us who arrived after we did, but not very. Even though we are hungry, we know that our ordering our food grilled or blackened slows things up in the kitchen, where the majority of the meals are fried. It is really really hard for people like us to watch other customers thoroughly enjoying their fried shrimp, fried catfish, fried grouper, fried scallops, etc. They look SO delicious. Every now and then, maybe once every couple months, we slip up and eat something deep fried, just because yes, yes, it tastes so good, and we know it is like the WORST thing for us. What a pity that deliciousness can be so lethal.
Ah! There it is! Our meals! We tuck right in and then I remember “Oh no! I haven’t taken any pictures!” AdventureMan is used to this, and bless his heart, he stops eating so I can shoot what is left of his grilled scallops, so tasty and delicious, so fresh!
I had so much salmon on my platter that I had salmon and steamed vegetables for dinner, too! The salmon was copious, lightly blackened, seared on the outside, moist on the inside, just the way I love it. It was some of the best salmon I have had in Pensacola (not exactly salmon country, but that little Alaska girl still lives in my heart and I can’t resist salmon when I see it on the menu.)
There’s another thing we loved about the Seafood Platter Deli – remember Dembo’s Smokehouse? We love restaurants that honor their heritage, and the Seafood Platter Deli has this wonderful wall:
Last, but not least, the food was so good, and so plentiful, that we couldn’t eat it all and ended up taking some home. We also took home some dessert, one dessert, $1.99 for a goodly portion of Vanilla Wafer pudding, that old-fashioned kind, maybe Banana pudding. It was so GOOD, we wish we’d gotten two. 🙂
Gulf Coast Seafood Deli / Seafood Platter Deli
Address: 2250 W Nine Mile Rd, Pensacola, FL 32534
Phone:(850) 969-3299
We love this place, and look forward to driving ‘all the way out there’ for more fabulous Gulf seafood.
Here There and Everywhere 