An Average Of 140 Women And Girls Were Killed By A Partner Or Relative Per Day In 2023, The UN Says

People take part in a march marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, in Lima, Peru, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Guadalupe Pado)

BY EDITH M. LEDERER

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The deadliest place for women is at home and 140 women and girls on average were killed by an intimate partner or family member per day last year, two U.N. agencies reported Monday.

Globally, an intimate partner or family member was responsible for the deaths of approximately 51,100 women and girls during 2023, an increase from an estimated 48,800 victims in 2022, UN Women and the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime said.

The report released on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women said the increase was largely the result of more data being available from countries and not more killings.

But the two agencies stressed that “Women and girls everywhere continue to be affected by this extreme form of gender-based violence and no region is excluded.” And they said, “the home is the most dangerous place for women and girls.”

UN Women’s Deputy Executive Director Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda told a news conference launching the report that women have been killed by their loved ones for a long time and the trend is continuing because underlying issues haven’t been addressed — especially gender stereotyping and social norms.

“This is killing which is associated with power over women,” she said, and it continues because of the continuing impunity for violent attacks against women.

Gumbonzvanda, a Zimbabwean and longtime advocate for women’s rights, said there is “a lot of perpetrator anonymity” when it comes to the killing of women by partners or family members because “it means the family members have to bring justice against another family member.”





UN Women is campaigning for those with economic and political power and for leaders in various traditions not to use their power to perpetuate violence. “Power should be used to facilitate options for prevention,” she said.

According to the report, the highest number of intimate partner and family killings was in Africa – with an estimated 21,700 victims in 2023. Africa also had the highest number of victims relative to the size of its population — 2.9 victims per 100,000 people, it said.

There were also high rates last year in the Americas with 1.6 female victims per 100,000 and in Oceania with 1.5 per 100,000, it said. Rates were significantly lower in Asia at 0.8 victims per 100,000 and Europe at 0.6 per 100,000.

According to the report, the intentional killing of women in the private sphere in Europe and the Americas is largely by intimate partners.

By contrast, the vast majority of male homicides take place outside homes and families, it said.

“Even though men and boys account for the vast majority of homicide victims, women and girls continue to be disproportionately affected by lethal violence in the private sphere,” the report said.

“An estimated 80% of all homicide victims in 2023 were men while 20% were women, but lethal violence within the family takes a much higher toll on women than men, with almost 60% of all women who were intentionally killed in 2023 being victims of intimate partner/family member homicide,” it said.

The report said that despite efforts to prevent the killing of women and girls by countries, their killings “remain at alarmingly high levels.”


“They are often the culmination of repeated episodes of gender-based violence, which means they are preventable through timely and effective interventions,” the two agencies said.

Domestic Violence Survivors Seek Homeless Services From A System That Often Leaves Them Homeless

AUTHORS:

NKEIRU NNAWULEZI

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF 

COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

BALTIMORE COUNTY

LAUREN CATTANEO

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF

CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY

GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY

About 1 in every 3 women, and 1 in 4 men, will experience domestic violence over their lifetime. Since domestic violence can escalate to the point of serious injury or murder, survivors must take action to increase their safety – potentially even fleeing their homes.

Of the total homicides that occurred in the U.S. in 2020, 34% of women and 6% of men were murdered by their intimate partners.

Research has clearly shown the connection between domestic violence and homelessness. For example, a California study found that domestic violence survivors were four times more likely to experience housing instability compared with those who hadn’t experienced domestic violence.

We are two psychologists based in Washington D.C., who study the experiences, struggles and strengths of domestic violence survivors.

In Washington, 1 in 4 people experiencing homelessness report a history of domestic violence, with nearly half citing it as the direct reason for their homelessness.

Domestic violence and housing instability

Housing instability brings its own set of problems for survivors, including poor health, economic insecurity and the risk of future violence. These stresses can lead survivors back to the abusive relationship or into other unsafe housing situations.

Because the vicious cycle between domestic violence and housing instability is well known, domestic violence experts have argued for policies to provide quick, specialized assistance for survivors who seek emergency housing support.

Too often, however, these policies fall flat. Our 2018-2019 study of domestic violence survivors in the city’s services for homelessness found that out of 41 participants, only four received immediate housing, with either a bed in a shelter or a hotel.

We collaborate with domestic violence advocates and attorneys as members of the Domestic Violence Action Research Collective, a project of the DC Coalition Against Domestic Violence. This group collectively decides on research questions through discussions about what hinders community practitioners’ ability to support domestic violence survivors.

Domestic violence advocates and attorneys in our group alerted us to repeated stories about how the district government’s homelessness services system was failing survivors. The group designed a study to find out why.

Survivors’ access to homelessness services

From May 2018 to May 2019, our team recruited study participants in the waiting room of the Virginia Williams Family Resource Center, which is the gateway for families needing emergency housing in Washington.

Of 779 clients we screened, 183 responded that domestic violence was the reason for their housing instability; 41 of those agreed to interviews about their experiences accessing homelessness services.

A Washington law states that survivors of domestic violence do not have to prove their residency in the district in order to be eligible for homeless services. Policy also dictates that survivors should be asked questions to sensitively assess their circumstances and should meet with an on-site domestic violence housing coordinator to connect them with resources.

Instead of receiving this specialized assistance, many of our participants said they found the intake process confusing and unpredictable. Almost half said they waited more than three hours to meet with staff, sometimes only to find out they needed different information to prove eligibility and would have to restart the process another day.

Participants told us that they hesitated to disclose their domestic violence experiences to staff and described inconsistent responses when they did. Of 20 participants who said they did disclose experiences with domestic violence during their intake, only 11 said they were asked about their experiences by staff, and only two met with the domestic violence specialist at the facility. Several participants shared that when they revealed experiences of domestic violence, staff members simply moved on without asking for further details.

The lack of assistance in response to the disclosure of domestic violence left many participants in distress. As one participant described it: “I left feeling discouraged and embarrassed that I told all of these people I did not know my business, just for them to say it wasn’t good enough.”

The impact of homelessness services on survivors

Many participants felt that staff ignored their safety concerns, especially when staff insisted that survivors stay with friends, family or their abusive partner, rather than using public resources. Participants said that staff sometimes even contacted those individuals without survivors’ knowledge.

Only 22 of our 41 participants were deemed eligible for services. Four received immediate shelter. Eighteen participants received referrals to public or private sources of housing assistance, or both, but too often these resources were also dead ends. Participants were put on long waitlists, landlords didn’t accept vouchers, or referral options were not responsive to participants’ immediate needs.

For example, a frequent referral was “rapid rehousing” – a program that provides governmental rental subsidies for up to one year, after which people must pay their own rent. Survivors who are eligible for rapid rehousing must find affordable housing in the district, which is a formidable obstacle to program effectiveness.

As one survivor put it: “Where am I going to be able to rent at, that’s not a slumlord, or not in certain dangerous neighborhoods? I’m looking for safety. Running to safety doesn’t mean that I’m trying to run into harm.”

The 19 survivors ineligible for services were given varied reasons, often involving their inability to prove they were homeless. Ten participants told us that at the time they left Virginia Williams, they and their children had nowhere to go. Leaving without assistance prompted difficult choices, including maxing out credit cards to stay in hotels or begging to stay with family and friends in conditions that created new problems.

Some of the people we interviewed believed that the denial of assistance was due to racist and classist stereotypes of Black women seeking to “exploit the system.” Given that 39 of the 41 participants in this study were Black, as was the majority of the clientele at the center, we believe the possibility that racial bias influenced the frequent denial of services is significant.

Underserving domestic violence survivors

If we focus just on the interaction between staff and participants, the simplest interpretation of these results could be that staff are uninformed, unfeeling or both. Or one might wonder whether something is amiss with the survivors seeking assistance – that they are being turned away because they are not following the right steps to receive help.

We believe those interpretations miss the larger context: In our estimation, these interactions are the predictable result of service providers and survivors trying to function within an unworkable system in a context that has very little housing support available to the community.

The need at housing programs in our area dramatically outstrips capacity. This drives survivors who lack resources into an unaffordable rental market, setting off a series of cascading problems. There is a disproportionate impact on communities already subject to structural and interpersonal discrimination, such as the Black women in our study.

Our study shows that this translates into a system that is more focused on determining eligibility than determining needs and restricting spending rather than increasing survivors’ safety, because staff are in the unenviable position of meting out insufficient assistance to many desperate people.

These interactions leave many without good options. One of the participants we interviewed summed up her experience this way: “I was upset. I was discouraged. And it just left me with the thought, well, maybe I’m not in so much danger. Maybe I can just stick it out a little bit longer, just try not to make him upset or anything. I was just trying to make it the best that I could.”

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

Why Do Some Men Commit Domestic Violence? Trauma And Social Isolation May Play A Role

There are ways to navigate complex emotional challenges without resorting to violence. bymuratdeniz/E+ via Getty Images

BY LAURA VOITH

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCES

CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY

Support for survivors of domestic violence is important, but to end domestic violence once and for all, society needs to understand the people who perpetrate it and how to successfully intervene.

Domestic violence is very common in the United States. Nearly half of women and men in the U.S. experience sexual or physical violence, stalking or psychological harm or coercion in a romantic relationship during their lifetime.

Domestic violence is also experienced unevenly across the U.S population. Young people are most vulnerable, with nearly three-fourths of female victims reporting that their first experience of domestic violence occurred before age 25. People of color and LGBTQ+ people also experience considerably higher rates of domestic violence than the national average. And despite similar rates of domestic violence across men and women, women report more severe effects on their lives, including higher rates of injury and need for medical care, needing help from law enforcement and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms.

I am a social worker who has spent the past 10 years studying how men come to use violence against their intimate partners, since the effects of their violence is often the most severe. My research has found that consistent supportive relationships with attentive adults in childhood and adulthood, along with stress management that takes trauma into account, are two promising approaches to prevent domestic violence.

The roots of domestic violence

Understanding how someone comes to perpetrate violence is necessary to stop violence from happening in the first place.

Certain childhood experiences can put people at risk of committing domestic violence in the future. Researchers have found that child abuse, neglect and a negative parent-child relationship are significant risk factors that may lead someone to later perpetrate domestic violence.

Experiencing trauma in early childhood can alter the brain, how the body responds to stress and whether someone sees the world as a threatening, harmful and untrustworthy place. For example, research has shown that people who have been exposed to trauma have increased activity in the amygdala of the brain, resulting in heightened fear and arousal that can lead to aggressive responses in the face of conflict and stress. Trauma exposure is also linked to a decrease in activity in the prefrontal cortex – that’s the part of the brain responsible for impulse control, concentration and emotional reasoning. These are essential qualities to navigate interpersonal relationships.

Toxic stress – excessive or prolonged activation of the body’s stress response – happens when someone encounters constant threats to their physical or mental safety during sensitive developmental periods. Compared to their peers, youth facing disproportionate levels of hardship and threats of poverty, racism and other structural inequities are at greater risk for toxic stress. These bodily changes can set kids up for PTSD, depression, and alcohol or drug abuse later in life, which are some of the most common risk factors of perpetrating domestic violence. One study found that nearly one-third of men in a domestic violence intervention program reported clinical levels of PTSD.

Beliefs about traditional gender roles dictating how men and women should act is another significant contributing factor to domestic violence. Unresolved trauma mixed with rigid gender views can limit the coping skills and tools people have to navigate complex emotional challenges in romantic relationships. For example, homes that promote rigid gender scripts, such as “boys don’t cry,” and limit opportunities to learn from activities that are considered “feminine,” like caring for baby dolls, can stunt the emotional expression of boys and make them less skilled in recognizing emotions in others and themselves. Anger typically becomes the most accessible emotion.

Certainly not all people who have faced childhood adversity and trauma are destined to perpetrate violence. Studies show that a secure parent-child attachment and the presence of safe, nurturing relationships and environments during childhood protect against future violence. Positive childhood experiences, such as feeling understood in difficult times and having at least two nonparental adults taking interest in your life, can help. One study of over 6,000 adults in Wisconsin found that those reporting three to five positive childhood experiences were 50% less likely to have depressive symptoms or poor mental health days compared to those who had fewer or no positive childhood experiences.

Without these protective factors, however, many children are at risk of carrying their trauma into their adolescent and adult romantic relationships.

Prevention and intervention

Supporting the health and well-being of society calls for research-based efforts to prevent and address domestic violence. Responsive relationships, or relationships where the other person is attentive, attuned and supportive, are a key way to improve the well-being of children and adults, including the mental health of survivors of abuse.

Researchers are paying more attention to the dangers of social isolation among adults. This has been exacerbated by cultural shifts stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, remote work and social media. Social isolation and unhealthy social networks can be dangerous for victims of violence and damaging for someone prone to committing violence because they can worsen mental health conditions like PTSD. Community-based programs that build supportive social networks have the potential to improve mental health risk factors for perpetrating violence.

Most domestic violence intervention programs for men have not incorporated the understanding that trauma registers in the body as much as it does in someone’s way of thinking. These programs mostly focus on unlearning abusive tendencies and relearning healthy ways of engagement. This kind of approach includes using workbooks and thought exercises to identify abusive behaviors and thoughts about subjugating women, understand why they’re harmful, and learn healthy ways to resolve conflict.

However, focusing on cognitive thought processes as the primary mechanism for change by itself is insufficient for lasting change. In order to meaningfully alter the effects of trauma, interventions must also engage autonomic brain processes.

Interventions that focus on regulating stress and emotions, such as deep breathing and mindfulness, can help address physiological symptoms of trauma and reset the body’s stress response. Resetting the body’s stress response can then help people engage in the higher-level learning necessary to adopt nonviolent thinking and behaviors and discard abusive tendencies.

Alleviating symptoms of PTSD and trauma in people who have perpetrated domestic violence may help them identify key triggers and develop the coping skills to respond to stress in healthier ways instead of violence.

READ ORIGINAL ESSAY HERE

Independent Investigation Demanded For Nigerian Killed By Phoenix Police

Attorney Sabinus Megwa (center) with Ngozi Mbegbu, the widow of Balantine Mbegbu. 

(PHOENIX, ARIZONA) -- A neighbor had dialed 911 to report disturbances at the Mbegbus residence on Thursday, October 6, 2014. According to the Phoenix New Times, upon arrival of the police and attempts to calm Balantine Mbegbu down, a "belligerent and confrontational" Mbegbu assaulted one of the officers and kicked one on the groin, noted the police statement, from around which Mbegbu was shot with a taser gun and handcuffed by the officer. As it happened, from the Phoenix Police Department report, Mbegbu was rushed to the hospital by paramedics where the 63-year old was pronounced dead. In a related story, Sabinus Megwa, attorney for Mbegbu's wife gave a different account from what Mbegbu's wife and sister-in-law had told him, saying there was no fight at the Mbegbus' home, and there was no need for police presence. Meanwhile, Megwa, representing the Mbegbus and protesters stormed the Phoenix City Hall Thursday, October 16, 2014 with calls for an independent investigation into the case. Image: Mathew Hendley/PNT

News Desk Update Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Human Trafficking in Eastern Europe 'Set to Rise'
Human trafficking is increasing in other parts of the world as well. In the Philippines, for example, rising unemployment is making more people vulnerable to traffickers, reports the humanitarian news agency IRIN. "Along with a possible upsurge of criminality as joblessness and poverty spread, there could be a rise in cases of human trafficking," says lawyer Ferdinand Lavin, chief of the National Bureau of Investigations Anti-Human Trafficking Division. "People will be more aggressive in finding jobs and human traffickers will take advantage of the situation."

Human trafficking, often referred to as modern-day slavery, is the second largest and fastest growing illegal industry in the world, according to the Polaris Project, a group that works with victims of all forms of human trafficking. Traffickers typically "prey on people who are hoping for a better life, lack employment opportunities, have unstable home life, or have a history of sexual abuse," notes the Polaris Project. [READ MORE>>>]


Modern-Day Slavery
INDIANAPOLIS - Slavery as blacks know it is permeated with images of Africans stuffed in ships, whipped and beaten beyond recognition, hung on trees and picking cotton. Slavery now has a new face – human trafficking. Human trafficking is often confused with smuggling, extortion or simple prostitution. When a person is a victim of human trafficking they are mandated to work under specific conditions by force. The U.S. is one of the top “destination” countries for human trafficking.

“I don’t want to devalue the legacy of slavery in this country with real shackles. For people to understand the kind of control someone is under, it's useful to think of this as a modern day form of slavery,” said Mark Lagon, executive director of Polaris Project, a national organization aimed at ending human trafficking.

Forced labor continues to be a substantial portion of human trafficking yet commercial sex dominates. According to Gayle Helart, assistant United States attorney, for the Southern District of Indiana, the crime isn't about the violence or the labor itself, but the money - especially commercial sex. [READ MORE>>>]


Brown panel urges memorial to note slave ties
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- A commission established by Brown University in cooperation with the city of Providence and the state of Rhode Island has released a report that makes six recommendations on how to acknowledge the university and community's historical relationship with the slave trade.

Among the recommendations by the commission is that the Public Arts Committee at Brown be asked to commission a memorial about how slavery was intertwined with the Ivy League university's early benefactors.

Other recommendations include working with city and state to explore how they will memorialize slavery in the city and state's past.

The commission recommends that the director of Center for Slavery and Justice, when appointed, undertake a discussion how this history will be represented in the Brown curriculum and how the curriculum can be used for teaching at the K-12 level and that the university through the center.

The commission also recommends providing funds for ongoing public events, seminars and lecture on issue that help the community reflect on the history of slavery in Rhode Island and similar atrocities around the world. [READ MORE>>>]


National domestic-violence conference set
The alleged beating of pop star Rihanna by her boyfriend, R&B singer Chris Brown, has touched off a national dialogue about domestic abuse.

"Whenever something so startling involving celebrities is in the public eye, it starts people talking," said Kate Marckworth, director of the health-care task force within the Columbus Coalition Against Family Violence.

The 10-year-old coalition hopes to continue the conversation at its first national conference, titled "Innovation through Collaboration: Building a Community Response to Family Violence."

The event, which will run from April 29 through May 1 at the Hilton Columbus at Easton, is expected to draw as many as 500 domestic-abuse experts from across the country.

"We are honored to host this conference to help dedicated individuals continue their work breaking the cycle of violence in victims' lives," said Abigail S. Wexner, the coalition's founder and chairwoman. [READ MORE>>>]