Amnesty campaigns focus on both sexes
So, to be accused of running a sexist campaign is disingenuous.
Our current campaign is to stop violence against women and girls. It is so focused because of the range of violations females experience simply because they are female.
For example, many civilians, male and female, experience similarly dreadful consequences of armed conflict and war, and Amnesty addresses these violations on an equal basis. But increasingly, women and girls are also the victims of rape as a weapon of war, the deliberate targeting of females in order to destroy them as individuals, and also to destroy their entire communities.
At least one in three women will experience gender-based violence in her lifetime, eg sexual violence or systematic domestic violence.
In the context of violence in the home, while Amnesty agrees that some victims are male, and that some perpetrators of violence against partners are female, Garda statistics for Ireland confirm that over 90% of callouts are for female victims, and that the perpetrator in over 90% of cases is male.
A 2002 WHO report states that only 20% of physically-abused women in Ireland contacted the police. Similarly, there are over 12,000 rape crisis calls each year in Ireland, 85% of which are by women, and UN statistics on Ireland indicate that only one in 10 women or girls report sexual violence - and many cannot subsequently face going through the legal process.
From any perspective, these statistics are disturbing. Violence against women and girls is a serious human rights problem nationally and internationally. In spite of the greater empowerment of women over the past 30 years, and recognition of their rights, reports of serious violence, including rape, have been increasing.
Violence against women has been silently accepted and facilitated by cultural and societal norms. We can and must make it stop by speaking out.
Before his recent death, Amnesty International founder Peter Benenson welcomed the decision to make violence against women a central issue.
Sean Love
Executive Director
Amnesty International (Irish Section)
48 Fleet St
Dublin 2
