UN: Domestic Violence Claims Life of One Woman Every Six Hours in South Africa

UN: Violence against women claims one life every six hours in South Africa and is a problem of pandemic proportions.

I came across some shocking statistics from the United Nations about violence against women. Here's an excerpt:

Violence against women and girls is a problem of pandemic proportions. Based on country data available, up to 70 per cent of women experience physical or sexual violence from men in their lifetime – the majority by husbands, intimate partners or someone they know.

Among women aged between 15 and 44, acts of violence cause more death and disability than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war combined. Perhaps the most pervasive human rights violation that we know today, violence against women devastates lives, fractures communities, and stalls development. It takes many forms and occurs in many places – domestic violence in the home, sexual abuse of girls in schools, sexual harassment at work, rape by husbands or strangers, in refugee camps or as a tactic of war.

PDF - Say NO Factsheet

Femicide ─ the murder of women because they are women

• In the United States, one-third of women murdered each year are killed by intimate partners.
• In South Africa, a woman is killed every 6 hours by an intimate partner.
• In India, 22 women were killed each day in dowry-related murders in 2007.
• In Guatemala, two women are murdered, on average, each day.

Those statistics are staggering and cause for concern. Domestic violence is a silent killer. Many times the victim is too afraid to seek help or tell someone what is going on in the home. Love doesn't hurt and it is a tragedy that so many men are content with inflicting such anguish and pain on their partners.