Aljazeera recently broadcasted a documentary about women behind bars in Colombia being given an opportunity to participate in a beauty pageant inside prison. One gripping story of a contestant who was convicted for murdering her rapist and was at the time serving 27 years in prison raised the question: Is a woman justified for attacking her assailant after the encounter?
Here’s her story:
At the age of 10 she was taken in by her sister and her husband. One day the couple forced her to drink alcohol with them and then tied her to a bed, after which her sister’s husband raped her. When she turned 14, still filled with rage, bitterness and revenge, she stabbed her brother-in-law to death.
At the time the documentary was shot, she had already served 5 years in prison and was still unremorseful. She admitted to having scores to settle and pondered on what her early release could mean. She was eventually freed, according to a statement provided at the end of the short film.
This violent story has been a reality for many women, though events leading to the actual act of violence may be different.
Reuters reports this week on the rise in crime against women in Delhi, India, with offenses such as rape, dowry deaths, molestation, abduction, kidnapping, sexual harassment and others making the list. The report refers to government statistics that indicate an increase by 26.7 percent in 2013 compared to the previous year. This does not include unreported cases to police.
Just this week, Egypt’s Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab was reported to have attended a conference held by Egypt’s National Council for Women (NCW) to fight violence against women. If this is an indication of progress, it should be slight hope for a nation still struggling to define independence for women.
Key facts provided by WHO assert: “Recent global prevalence figures indicate that 35% of women worldwide have experienced either intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.”
These figures beg another question: What does it mean to society?