United
Nations
Economic
and Social Council
Distr.:
General
Original: English
Commission
for Status of Women
Fifty-first
session
Relevant
to the Theme of the Commission:
The
elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl
child
Statement submitted by Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, and UNANIMA International, non-governmental organizations in special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council.
Endorsed and Supported by:
Dominican Leadership Conference
Equality Now
Foundation for Studies and Research on Women
The Grail
Guild of Service
International AIDS Women's Caucus
International Federation of University Women
Miramed Institute
Peace Worldwide
National Council of Women of the USA
Soroptimist International
Ursulines of Tildonk for Justice and Peace
We NGOs work to protect the human rights of women and girls, specifically by attempting to eradicate all forms of gender-based violence, from rape, prostitution, and sexual harassment, to battering, female genital mutilation, and femicide. Systematic and systemic, violence against women and girls in all of its manifestations is devastating to their right to enjoy fundamental human rights, especially the right to life, liberty, and security of their persons and the right to equality.
Too often women first experience
gender-based violence while they are still girl children, deprived of the
protection and support all children need for healthy and full development, because their mothers have themselves
been subjected to grievous forms of gender-based violence and other forms of
gender discrimination. One
researcher, a
Domestic Violence and the Girl
Child
Experts estimate that
between 1 out of 2 and 1 out of 3 women, around the world, endure battering by
an intimate partner.[ii]
Slightly
more than 50 percent of female victims of intimate violence live in households
with children under age twelve.[iii] Men who batter their wives and
girlfriends are far more likely than non-abusive men to abuse their
children. In over half of all
domestic violence situations, the children are also physically abused.[iv] Children can witness violent situations
by seeing an incident, or by hearing their mother's screams and crying, abuser's
threats, sounds of fists hitting flesh, glass breaking, wood splintering,
cursing and degrading language. [v]
Girl
children who helplessly witness the battering of their mothers and/or who suffer
abuse themselves from battering husband and fathers not only frequently suffer
trauma and depression; they learn terrifying lessons about what it means to be a
woman, lessons that leave them in fear and resign them to a life of violence and
denigration. Because use and abuse
of children is one of the chief strategies of power and control to which abusive
husbands and fathers frequently resort, girl children of battering fathers and
abused mothers may be abducted from their mothers by their fathers, may be the
subject of retaliatory custody battles initiated by their fathers against their
mothers, and/or may grow up listening to their fathers vilify and disparage
their mothers. Exposure to domestic
violence primes girl children, often from infancy, for a life of gender-based
subordination and violence.
Female Genital Mutilation and the Girl
Child
Female genital mutilation is a
practice of violence against girl children, and the adult women they become,
that exists to maintain and reinforce the power of men over women. It is
frequently performed by women for whom it is their only source of livelihood at
the request of female family members, who believe that if they are not subjected
to it, their girl children will be unmarriageable and cast out. A recent study estimates that over 130
million girls and women have undergone FGM and at least 2 million per year are
expected to go through it. [vi]
In 1993 a study conducted in
Female genital mutilation is an excruciatingly painful and dangerous act of gender-based violence that guarantees men that the women and girls in their families and societies will never fully experience the pleasure of their own bodies. The process of undergoing FGM can also increase risk of HIV exposure, as well as producing harmful physical and psychological effects that will last a lifetime. If the FGM procedure does not end in death for the girl, she most will likely experience pain and suffering during the uniquely female experiences of their lives: menstruation, sexual relations, and childbirth. According to the personal stories of thousands of women, their experiences of menstruation, sex, and childbirth are imbibed with feelings of fear, pain, worry and even physical struggle to with her husband to prevent painful intercourse.
Female genital mutilation teaches the girl child that women are abusive and untrustworthy and female genitals are a lifelong wound.
Child Marriage and the Girl
Child
Child Marriage is the largest form of socially and morally sanctioned child sexual abuse. A UNICEF statistical study estimated in 2004 that within the next decade, more than 100 million girls in the developing world would marry before the age of 18.[ix] But, according to the UN, girls do not reach the age of adulthood until 18, before which time they are not considered physically, physiologically, or psychologically ready for the burdens of marriage, sex, and childbearing. Because children cannot consent to sexual activities with adults, the sexual acts imposed on child wives are, by definition, rape.
Girls still have across cultures
and continents, low cultural value in comparison to the value of boys thus
limited social support networks. Because child wives are economically
dependent, have limited mobility, and are less able to negotiate, child
marriages tend to have more instances of domestic violence. Child wives are murdered 3 times more
frequently than adult wives. A World Health Organization study reported that in
urban
Health risks for child wives are numerous. Pregnancy related deaths are the leading cause of mortality in girls 15-19 years old. Girls under 15 are 5 times more likely to die due to childbirth complications than those women over 20.[xi] Child brides also have higher rates of HIV infection. The Population Council confirms that the increased exposure to unprotected sex at a young age is actually a significant contributor to the epidemic. Child marriage is also linked with higher rates of female genital mutilation, as it is often seen as a prerequisite for marriage. Young mothers are unlikely to receive an education, and the children of uneducated mothers are also less likely to be educated.
The widespread child sexual exploitation that is accepted under the word “marriage” indicates the continual, omnipresent belief among countries and cultures that girl children are regarded as things to be owned and used.
Sexual Abuse and Exploitation and the Girl
Child
Research indicates that 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 10 boys will be sexually victimized before adulthood.[xii] 63 percent of all sexual assaults reported to police involve girls under 18 and UN agencies estimate that there are at least 1 to 2 million children, aged 5 to 15, most of them girls, who are led into the commercial sex industry each year. Trafficking, prostitution and pornography are child sexual abuse and exploitation. According to a UNICEF article, 30 to 35 per cent of all women in prostitution in the Mekong sub-region of Southeast Asia are between 12 and 17 years of age, there are more than 16,000 children engaged in prostitution in Mexico, and in Lithuania, 20 to 50 percent of prostitutes are believed to be minors, some as young as 11 years old.[xiii] These, mostly, girls are reduced to commodities, sold by traffickers and pimps to be raped repeatedly by “paying customers.”
After the Internet, between 1996 and 2004, the number of child pornography
cases handled by the FBI’s cyber-crime investigators increased 23 fold. More than 80, 000 reports of
Internet-related child pornography were made to CyberTipline.[xiv] This is up from 750 percent in 5
years.[xv] Pimps, traffickers, pornographers,
and pedophiles frequently use pornography to “groom” children for prostitution
and sexual abuse by repeatedly subjecting them to pornographic images.
The deleterious impact of sexual abuse, prostitution, and pornography on the health and human rights of girls around the world is enormous. Victims of prostitution often suffer severe health consequences from injuries inflicted by beatings, rapes, and unwanted sex. According to the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, the long-term effects of sexual abuse and exploitation, including pornography and nude photographing childhood can include: PTSD and/or anxiety, depression and thoughts of suicide, sexual anxiety and disorders, poor body image and low self-esteem, and the use of unhealthy, self-destructive behaviors, such as alcohol abuse, drug abuse, self-mutilation, or bingeing and purging to help mask painful emotions related to the abuse. Girls suffering from these severe and often long-term health problems are prevented from obtaining and advancing their human rights.
Legalization of prostitution and pornography for adult women lowers the standards for women’s and girl’s humanity to that of a commodity or thing. It gives men moral and social permission to use and abuse women and girls. Acceptance of sexual exploitation, prostitution, and pornography normalizes women’s and girls’ humiliation, subordination, and pain.
Recommendations
We urge policy and action in the following areas:
[i] Herman, Judith Lewis, Dr. Father-Daughter Incest.
2000.
[ii] Heise, L., Ellsberg, M. and Gottemoeller, M. Ending Violence Against Women. Population
Reports, Series L, No. 11.,December 1999.
[iii]
Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and
Girlfriends, March 1998.
[iv] National
Domestic Violence Media Campaign, 1995.
[vi] Abusgaraf, Rogaia Mustafa, ed. Female Circumcision: Multicultural
Perspectives. University of
[ix] Bruce, J. and Clark, S. “The implications of early
marriage for HIV/AIDS policy.” Populations
Council Brief. Population Council:
[x] World Health Organization. WHO Multi-country Study on Women’s Health
and Domestic
Violence against Women:
Initial Results on Prevalence, Health Outcomes and
Women’s
Responses’ Summary
Report. World Health Organization:
[xi] “Ending Child Marriage: A Guide for Global Policy
Action.” The International Planned
Parenthood Federation:
[xii] Finkelhor, D. “Current Information on the Scope and
Nature of Child Sexual Abuse.” The
Future of Children: Sexual
Abuse of Children, 1994, volume 4, page
37.
[xiii] “Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation.” UNICEF website,
http://www.unicef.org/protection/index_exploitation.html