Gender-Based Injustice
His words cut into her. Foul words, jagged and careless. Words that knock the wind right out of her. More so than any fist, his words leave her stunned. Stunned at his viciousness. Stunned at his cruelty. Stunned because tomorrow she won’t see any signs that he is a monster, but will look through and through like that man she married, the man she loves.
She’s your neighbor. No matter what language you speak or where you live – a house in Peru, an apartment in Toronto, or a hut in a Northern Africa village. You talk to her throughout the week, send your kids outside to play with her kids, you share the same street.
She is one of those unfortunate women who does not have the luxury of losing the healthy years of her life to cancer or an auto wreck or to war. She is a housewife and her husband hits her, beats the health and spirit right out of her. Oh, how he swings, until her body bleeds, until her muscles tear, until bones crack. She takes blow after blow because her husband drinks too much, had a bad day at work, because she will take a beating to keep him from the children, because she cannot, no matter how she tries, please him.
You may not have seen the bruise marks or swelling that cover her body, wounds she so expertly hides. You don’t know that she cut her beautiful long hair so her husband has less leverage with which to swing her head and smash it against the floor, the toilet, the wall. You may not know how her stomach tightens or how her breathing stops whenever men are nearby. You may not know that she wishes to scream and rage and fight because she lives daily in fear for her own life. She is tormented by the risk of wishing she could run away with the children, go to the emergency room, or call the police.
She is your neighbor and at night she cries and hurts and bleeds.
*the above story is a fictional account based on data about domestic violence, for actual statistics order 30 Days of Prayer for the Voiceless
Definition:
Violence between spouses or intimate partners; when one partner tries to control the other person. The perpetrator uses fear and intimidation and often physical or sexual violence.
Statistics:
- 1 out of 3 women worldwide has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime
- 4 million women a year are assaulted by their partners; in 1 of 4 cases, women will also be sexually abused
- 60% of battered women are abused while they are pregnant
- 70-90% of women in Pakistan experience domestic violence
- every 9 seconds in the USA a women is assaulted or beaten
- 1.1 million women in Australia have experienced violence by a previous partner
