Reply #12: but should it fight sexism?

[BlancheSplanchnik]

meh...not so much.

United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights webpage 2009 http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/ViolenceAgainstWomen.aspx

To combat the rising phenomenon of violence against women and girls, those committing the crimes must be prosecuted. On the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (25 November), United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said most perpetrators of these crimes enjoyed impunity.
...<snip>...

Violence against women is one of the most pervasive human rights violations. It devastates lives, fractures communities, and stalls development. At least one out of every three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime — with the abuser usually someone known to her, according to the In-Depth Study on All Forms of Violence against Women: Report of the Secretary General, 2006.

This next one is an "old" article from CBC Canada, 2006 -- but in three years, there has still been no substantial action-- world leaders continue to see racism as the evil it is, but gender violence, much more widespread and continuing to rise, still gets zero press. And women's shelters get cut. (One out of every THREE women worldwide, people!! Let's not forget that) http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/10/22/jean-violence.html?ref=rss

Denying women human rights — including the right to live free from violence — "is the most flagrant form of subjugation and one of the worst scandals of our time," Governor General Michaëlle Jean said Sunday.

The statistics on the numbers of female victims of violence are "intolerable," she told the International Conference Violence Against Women in Montreal.


Soldiers tortured and killed the husband of Rwandan mother Athanasie Mukarwego, and threatened to rape her to death.
(CBC)

UN figures show that one in three women in the world has been brutalized or forced to have sexual relations. Violence is the leading cause of death among women 16 to 44, conference organizers said in a media release.

Jean said she had worked with women victims of violence for many years, creating shelters for battered women in Quebec.

...<snip>...

Jean told the packed room in a downtown Montreal hotel she would never forget the pain and courage she saw in the women she helped.
"Their words lift me up in good times and in bad," she said.

Since becoming governor general, Jean said she has made fighting violence against women a priority.
Conference organizer Dominique Damant said Canadians hear most about domestic abuse, but human trafficking, forced marriage and rape are problems that are equally urgent.