Women and Violence

Women and Violence around the World

1

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Women and Violence around the World

Tamara Solomon

City College of New York

PSY 318

Prof. A. Akinsulure-Smith

4-18-2007

Women and Violence around the World

2

Kenya lies across the equator in east-central Africa, on the coast of the Indian Ocean. It is twice the size of Nevada. Kenya borders Somalia to the east, Ethiopia to the north, Tanzania to the south, Uganda to the west, and Sudan to the northwest. In the north, the land is arid; the southwest corner is in the fertile Lake Victoria Basin; and a length of the eastern depression of the Great Rift Valley separates western highlands from those that rise from the lowland coastal strip.

Violence against women is widespread in Kenya; everyday women are physically and sexually abused which is not unusual, nor is it committed only by abnormal, psychologically disturbed individuals but by police, husbands, fathers and friends.

These are some of the violent crimes perpetrated against women:

1) Rape occurs in all social and ethnic groups and cuts across all division of class, race, age, religion and the geographical region. It is perhaps the most pervasive form of abuse which is a crime that shocks and traumatizes the victim and undermines the status of women in society.

Victims of rape often face obstacles in trying to bring the perpetrators to justice. Many women who have suffered rape or other forms of abuse are too intimidated by

Women and Violence around the World

3

cultural attitudes and state inaction to seek redress. To do so...