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'By the numbers: The oppression of women and girls globally'
(extracts)
Murder and male violence
A new report shows that, worldwide, about 137 women are murdered every day by men who they know. Fifty eight per cent of women killed in 2017 were killed by partners or family members.
Source: Feminist Current
The most dangerous place for women is in their own homes, a new report from the United Nations concludes. Domestic violence is the most common killer of women around the world. In 2017, 87,000 women were murdered around the world, and more than half (50,000 or 58 percent) were killed by partners or family members. Over a third (30,000) of those intentionally killed last year were murdered by a current or former intimate partner. This means that, globally, six women are killed every hour by someone they know.
The study suggested that violence against women has increased in the last five years, drawing on data from 2012 in which 48,000 (47 percent) of female homicides were perpetrated by intimate partners or family members.
Geographically, Asia had the most female homicides (20,000) perpetrated by intimate partners or family members in 2017, followed by Africa (19,000), North and South America (8,000), Europe (3,000) and Oceania (300). The U.N. does point out that because the intimate partner and family-related homicide rate is 3.1 per 10,000 female population, Africa is actually the continent where women are at the greatest risk of being murdered by a partner or family member.
Source: HuffPost
95 per cent of all violence committed against both men and women is committed by men.
Source: Caitlin Roper, Reclaim the Night Speech; ABC; Australian Bureau of Statistics
“Women commit perhaps one-tenth of all murders, and less than one tenth of one percent of all mass shootings. When one removes from the pool of killers all women who struck back against abusive strangers and partners alike, only to be punished for their self-defense, the number drops further. To deny the specifically male nature of atrocity is to fool oneself.”
Source: Jonah Mix, “Mass Killers Don’t Have a Warped View of Masculinity — Liberal Men Do” (continues)
Marriage
Globally, ten million girls are sold into marriage every single year. That is 25,000 girls per day, with more than one third of all child brides in India.
Source: Graça Machel and Mary Robinson, “Girls Not Brides”, in Minky Worden (ed.) “Unfinished Revolution”, 2012
Worldwide there are 51 million girls between 15 and 19 years old who are married.
In West Africa, South Asia, East and Central Africa 30 per cent or more of girls aged 15-19 are already married.
The percentage of girls who are married before age 18 is:
Niger: 82 per cent
Bangladesh: 75 per cent
Nepal: 63 per cent
Cameroon: 62 per cent
India: 57 per cent
Uganda: 50 per cent
The number of girls expected to marry before 18 in the decade after 2003 is 100 million.
Source: Sheila Jeffreys, “The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade”, 2009
In Afghanistan, increased child marriage is the result of the privations suffered through the last decade [2000-2010 decade] of conflict. The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission estimates that 57 per cent of marriages involve girls under the legal marriage of of 16.
Source: Sheila Jeffreys, “The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade”, 2009
Female genital mutilation
It is estimated that more than 200 million girls and women alive today have undergone female genital mutilation in the countries where the practice is concentrated. Furthermore, there are an estimated 3 million girls at risk of undergoing female genital mutilation every year.
Source: WHO
FGM is forced on 98% of girls born in Somalia.
Source: Hibo Wardere, “Cut”, 2016
Prostitution
Prostitution is by far the deadliest situation a woman can be in. For women and girls in prostitution, the death rate is 40 times higher than the average. No group of women, regardless of career or life situation, has as high a mortality rate as prostitution.
Source: Kasja Ekis Ekman, “Being and Being Bought”, 2013
In 2003, a survey carried out among 800 prostituted people in 9 countries (Canada, Colombia, Germany, Mexico, South Africa, Germany, Thailand, Turkey, the USA, and Zambia) revealed that:
71 per cent had experienced physical assault while in prostitution
63 per cent had been raped while engaged in prostitution
89 per cent said they wanted to leave prostitution and said they would if they had the possibility
68 per cent met the criteria for a diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder
Source: Prostitution Research and Education
Up to 95 per cent of women in street prostitution have a problematic drug addiction.
Source: Kat Banyard, “Pimp State”, 2016
According to Wikipedia, there are between 40 and 42 million prostituted persons globally. Estimates put the percentage of women between 80% and 98%. 99% of punters are men.
Pornography
The average age of death for women in pornography is 37.
Source: Pornography FAQ
A report from an IT research company in 2002 forecast that profits from pornographic materials transmitted to mobile phones in the USA would reach an annual US$4 billion by 2006, out of a “total porn spend of US$70 billion”.
Source: Sheila Jeffreys, “Beauty and Misogyny”, 2005
In Denmark, pornography is estimated to be the third largest industry in financial terms… the country was the cradle of the ‘sexual revolution’ which decensored pornography and ushered in the commercialization of women’s sexual subordination.
The number of hardcore pornography titles produced increased from 1,300 in 1988 to 12,000 in 2004 and 13,588 in 2005.
The big mainstream pornography distribution companies had considerable incomes.
Playboy earned US$331,100,000 in 2006; Beate Uhse earned US$271 million.
Source: Sheila Jeffreys, “The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade”, 2009
Pornography is now so mainstream that it forms a very lucrative sector of the business of respectable mainstream companies such as General Motors, which sells more pornography films anually than the Hustler chain. General Motors previously owned DirecTV, a pornography distributor, which is now owned by Rupert Murdoch.
Source: Sheila Jeffreys, “The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade”, 2009
In 2007, pornography revenue for the US was estimated at $13.33 billion, which is higher than the total revenue of the media corporations ABC, NBC and CBS.
Top Ten Reviews estimated that the industry was worth US$97.06 billion worldwide, which is more than the combined revenue of the top 10 web technology companies such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon.
Source: Sheila Jeffreys, “The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade”, 2009
Strip clubs
The strip club industry is estimated to be worth US$75 billion worldwide.
One media report in 2006 estimated the US industry to be worth more than baseball, saying: ‘$4 billion a year is spent by men on baseball, the national pastime. Compare that to $15 billion a year spent by men at strip clubs.’
Source: Sheila Jeffreys, “The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade”, 2009
In 2002, there were 200 lap dancing clubs in the UK.
A 2003 media report estimated the annual turnover of UK lap dancing clubs at 300 million pounds, and commented that ‘they are one of the fastest growing elements in the UK’s leisure services industry.
In the US in 2005, there were an estimated 3,000 clubs employing 300,000 women.
In 2006, the strip club industry was estimated to be worth 22.1 million per year to the Scottish economy alone.
Source: Sheila Jeffreys, “The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade”, 2009
Beauty industry
The global beauty industry was estimated by The Economist in May 2003 to be worth US$160 billion.
Source: Sheila Jeffreys, “Beauty and Misogyny”, 2005
In the nineteenth century there was no mass market of beauty products.
“Between 1909 and 1929 the number of American perfume and cosmetics manufacturers nearly doubled, and the factory value of their products rose tenfold, from $14.2 million to nearly $141 million”.
Source: Peiss, quoted in Sheila Jeffreys, “Beauty and Misogyny”, 2005
Cosmetics industry sales grew from $7 billion in 1970 to $28 billion in 1994 in the USA.
Source: Sheila Jeffreys, “Beauty and Misogyny”, 2005
Surrogacy
At a clinic in Anand in northern India, women give birth to Western children. White women’s eggs are inseminated with white men’s sperm, and the embryo is implanted in the wombs of Indian women… After giving birth to the children, the Indian women surrender them. They sign a contract and receive between 2,500 and 6,500 USD the moment they give up responsibility for the child they just gave birth to. For the women, most of whom are poor and from nearby villages, the payment can be up to the equivalent of ten years’ salary. The buyers are typically American, European, Australian, Japanese or wealthy Indians
Source: Kasja Ekis Ekman, “Being and Being Bought”, 2013
In 2006 analysts estimated the value of the Indian surrogate industry at 449 million USD, due to its high potential for future growth.
Source: Kasja Ekis Ekman, “Being and Being Bought”, 2013
Pregnancy and motherhood
Every year, 350,000 women and girls die of pregnancy, childbirth and unsafe abortions. Three quarters of these deaths are preventable.
Source: Minky Worden (ed.) “Unfinished Revolution”, 2012
50,000 – 100,000 new incidents of fistula (damaged tissue between vagina and bladder causing incontinence) are detected annually.
Source: Minky Worden (ed.) “Unfinished Revolution”, 2012
Preference for boys
In 1990, Amartya Sen estimated that there are 100 million “missing women” globally, because of sex-selective abortions, female infanticide, and inadequate healthcare and nutrition for female children.
Source: “Missing Women” entry, Wikipedia.
Abortion
The Guttmacher Institute estimates 56 million induced abortions occur each year worldwide.
The global annual rate of abortion for all women of reproductive age (15–44) was estimated to be 35 per 1,000 in 2014, which is a reduction from the 1990–1994 rate of 40 per 1,000. The estimated global abortion rate in 2014 was 35 per 1,000 for married women and 26 per 1,000 for unmarried women.
Women in developing regions have a higher likelihood of having an abortion than those in developed regions — 36 vs. 27 per 1,000.
Globally, 25% of all pregnancies end in abortion. Of all abortions, an estimated 55% are safe (i.e., done using a recommended method and by an appropriately trained provider);
31% are less safe (meet either method or provider criterion);
14% are least safe (meet neither criterion).
The more restrictive the legal setting, the higher the proportion of abortions that are least safe—ranging from less than 1% in the least-restrictive countries to 31% in the most-restrictive countries.
Source: The Guttmacher Institute, with thanks to Anna McCormack
Sexual division of labour
While “the farmer” generally conjures an image of a man, women produce over half of the world’s food – in Africa, 60-80 per cent.
Eighty per cent of all domestic workers are women.
Source: Cynthia Enloe, “The Big Push”, 2017
72% of women migrant workers are Asian – mainly domestic workers and in prostitution.
Source: Yayori Matsui, “Women in the New Asia”, 2000
Incarceration
Indigenous women are currently the fastest growing incarcerated group: that is true in Canada, the U.S., Australia and New Zealand, where women are being incarcerated for crimes associated with poverty, like welfare fraud. In New Zealand, Arohata Women’s Prison is overflowing, so that some women have been placed in a self-contained unit at a nearby men’s prison; the women’s prison in South Auckland is bursting to the point that plans are being made to sleep some prisoners in the District Court holding cells. In the States, women can be charged for self defense, miscarriage and abortion.
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