I am pleased and feel honoured today for being accorded this rare opportunity to address this Conference on an issue which over the last decade has finally gained due recognition as a serious issue of global concern. Violence against women in the form of rape effects all societies, across all geographic cultural, economic and political parameters, across all race, class, age and reli-gious categories.
Women are targets of violence solely because of their sex.
Female focussed violence, such as sexual harassment, assault, battery, rape, emotional abuse, economic exploitation, torture, genital mutilation, and indeed, murder, confirm the persistence of deep-rooted, systemic inequality between men and women in virtually all societies. Of all the sexual offences, I am tasked to day to address you specifically on the issue of rape in Namibia. This also ignores the fact that men can also be raped, which occurs frequently especially in the prisons and police cells. This definition also excludes other sexual violations of the body that are also seen as serious as rape, like forced anal intercourse. Women and girls are subjected to physical, sexual and psychological abuse.