Fighting violence requires fighting poverty, too
In the present climate of world affairs weighed down with partisan politics, surging inequality and social unrest, governments around the world are under pressure to bar refugees, to cut taxes for the rich, and to cut spending on the poor. Canada appears to be an exception.
It is remarkable to read in the announcement of the recent budget that Canada will borrow billions to fight gender-based violence and invest in people to get them ready to adapt to the changing nature of family life and workforce. The announcement of the first ever gender-based budget sounds like a war budget.
Gender-based violence implies both violence against women and violence against lesbian, gay, transgender, queer and intersex individuals. The violence can be sexual or non-sexual.
The sexual violence of immediate concern to women is of course rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment, and spousal abuse. They may be rare but they are frightening.
Violence due to cultural, religious, and social practices constitute the persistent form of gender-driven violence in different countries, such as genital mutilation, dowry, feticide, and honour killing to name a few.
Although sexual violence captures the headlines, the most prevalent and persistent form of violence against women is poverty-driven. Women all over the world are either unemployed, underemployed, or underpaid. Single mothers with children fare the worst. This is true in Canada and it is true all over the world. Poverty can be cyclical and hereditary — it affects the children and the next generation.
Women are affected by gender-based violence — this we know. Women are disproportionately affected by poverty — this we also know. But what we may not know is that poverty is also an accelerator of genderbased violence. Poverty causes a chain reaction and breeds new social conditions that have multiplier effects on violence against women. Let me give you a few examples. Alcohol-related violence is common among the poor more or less everywhere and women suffer the most, not only from economic hardships but also from spousal abuse. When the man gets arrested and is locked up in jail for spousal abuse, the woman has no source of income, so she goes to the court and pleads for his release. He comes home and the cycle of violence continues. Marriage dowry has become a new cause of physical violence against women in some communities. In one state in northeastern India, indigenous groups have adopted the dowry system and young women are under pressure to get money and gifts from their parents on a continuous basis — long after the marriage ceremony. Refusal to do so can bring physical abuse.
Marriage dowry is also the reason behind the common practice of female feticide in some of the richest states of India. Nobody wants girls. In some states, the sex ratio has fallen below 700 females per 1,000 males. In one community from Odisha, it is below 500. Shortage of women is increasing sexual assaults, abduction, and a new phenomenon: bride sharing between brothers.
Poverty has always been a major cause of sex trafficking. Girls from poor communities are lured on the pretense of jobs, taken to cities and sold as sex slaves.
Poverty is a major factor behind child marriage in many Middle East and North African countries. Poverty-driven child marriage is the leading cause of maternal mortality according to the World Health Organization. High maternal mortality means more serial monogamy which means looking for younger brides which means more maternal mortality.
Finally, I came to know a successful businessperson who employs women only. He hires women to make garments and handcrafted, fancy souvenirs. He produces them cheap and sells them cheap and he caters to the lower middle classes who want fancy things at cheaper prices. How does he do it? He pays his employees in the form of refreshment in the morning before they begin, a meal before they leave, and Rs15 (30 cents) an hour in wages. These women, all local, are poor mothers who would be otherwise sitting at home unemployed. They are happy and he says he is helping them.
It is great to see the Liberal government unveil a gender-based budget to fight gender-based violence. It will require a twopronged approach — tackling poverty on one hand and sexual violence on the other. This will take a long and sustained community effort. Gender-based violence is like a chronic disease, it cannot be cured overnight.