Violence never solved anything, still we suffer in silence.
By: Yoanna Koleva
Tags: Women, UN, Violence

Credits: UN Mission

I sometimes wonder how many opinion pieces and articles we have to write to bring the matter at hand. How many organisations have to speak out. But mostly, I wonder, what tragedy has to occur for us to truly understand the scope of the problem and fight to bring more legislation around it? The truth is, atrocities and gender-based violence happen every single minute somewhere in the world. Tragedies have happened and continue to happen before our eyes. Within the United Kingdom alone, 1 in 4 women will experience domestic abuse and 1 in 5 sexual assault during her lifetime. Globally this rises to 1 in 3. Now, those are statistics based on women who speak out — and 40% of women don’t. Because the stigma attached to us is scary, because culturally, many around the world cannot afford what will follow.

It seems like the odds are against us and still, we fight to turn this around.

Is violence physical or verbal?

I was asked a couple of days ago if verbal violence truly is violence. Why wouldn’t it be? In an age where most of our population struggles with anxiety and mental health problems, the power of words now more than ever have the ability to subject us to humiliation, shame, guilt, grief. Over what? Over expressing an opinion on behalf of a marginalised community? Over using our voice louder and bolder? Speaking your truth doesn’t have to cause you any of those feelings. But this is the reality for women around the world. Leading scholars around the world cite that the effects of emotional abuse can be painful and destructive, both in the short and long-term, survivors are often riddled by low self-esteem and depression as a result.

By definition, violence is as follows:

“the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.”

So why do we not define is as a verbal force as well, when it results in the same traumatic instances?

In War and Peace

Throughout my years studying at King’s College London, I focused my dissertation and the majority of my papers around violence against women in war-torn areas. And I remember vividly translating through war journals and forgotten papers the accounts of women, mostly anonymous, subjected to accounts of sexual violence even by peace-keepers, imposed to look after those women. Throughout war-torn areas, women have historically been used as a vessel through which anger and resentment can be expressed. In terms of social impact, stigma and awareness distribution, I knew that what had to be promoted was a greater transparency of the UN’s efforts to counter violence against women and children in war zones, by establishing a monitoring team to assess the impact of such efforts.

During my research, I started wondering — is there a moment in time, in history, where women were not subjected to violence? Unfortunately violence does not stop at war or peace, it exists in the seemingly happy family next door, the quiet village, the empty city. And because I have always considered myself as a true feminist, one that believes in equality, I found it harder and harder to defend my arguments without including the one about us being the weaker sex and being an easy target. But equally, the upsetting reality is that many kinds of violence against women (specifically rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence) are under-reported, often due to societal norms, taboos, stigma, and the sensitive nature of the subject, so they are naturally exacerbated against us. It’s truly an inconvenient statistic for those of us that decide to blind ourselves towards the matter. And trust me, it was not comfortable for me either to read as a 20 year old girl accounts of torture and rape against women simply because they were there. Let that sink it, that they did not do anything to provoke that, they were just there. And it was convenient for the perpetrators.

At work and Home

When I think about how many women subject to domestic violence had to stay at home and experience this violence daily due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I get shivers. But I am also grateful to have seen so many campaigns helping those women call, make it known, make it apparent. That home is not home for many. Violence against women equally happens at work too, not all work environments function properly, even the big corporations, even with HR’s paid big salaries. Again, because if we complain, we might lose our livelihood, we might be judged, the world might turn against us.

The global pandemic we are experiencing now opens the doors for many legislative measures to be implemented more strictly, so that we can feel comfortable in our surroundings — home or work.

Credits: UN

It all starts with raising awareness and asking questions, asking many questions. Making it comfortable for women to share our stories, without any implications that would suggest otherwise. That is all this article is — making it apparent and known that violence against women and girls is all around us, in war and peace, at home and work — physical and verbal. And we need to make it a bigger topic of discussion, no matter how uncomfortable it is.