Women and 'gendercide'

By Ayaan Hirsi Ali, AYAAN HIRSI ALI, a Somali-born Dutch legislator,

lives under 24-hour protection because of death threats against her

by Islamic radicals since the murder of Theo van Gogh, with whom she

made the film

March 26, 2006



AS I WAS PREPARING for this article, I asked a very good friend who

is Jewish if it was appropriate for me to use the term "holocaust"

to portray the worldwide violence against women. He was startled.

But when I read him the figures in a 2004 policy paper published by

the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, he

said yes, without hesitation.


One United Nations' estimate says that between 113 million and 200

million women around the world are "missing." Every year, between

1.5 million and 3 million women and girls lose their lives as a

result of gender-based violence or neglect. As the Economist, which

reported on the policy paper, put it last November, "Every two to

four years the world looks away from a victim count on the scale of

Hitler's Holocaust." How could this possibly be true?


Here are some of the factors:


• In countries where the birth of a boy is considered a gift and

the birth of a girl a curse from the gods, selective abortion and

infanticide eliminate female babies.


• Young girls die disproportionately from neglect because food and

medical attention is given first to brothers, fathers, husbands and

sons.


• In countries where women are considered the property of men,

their fathers and brothers can murder them for choosing their own

sexual partners. These are called "honor" killings, though honor has

nothing to do with it. Young brides are killed if their fathers do

not pay sufficient money to the men who have married them. These are

called "dowry deaths," although they are not just deaths, they are

murders.


• The brutal international sex trade in young girls kills uncounted

numbers of them.


• Domestic violence is a major reason for the deaths of women in

every country.


• So little value is placed on women's health that every year

roughly 600,000 women die giving birth. As the Economist pointed

out, this is equivalent to the genocide in Rwanda happening every 12

months.


• Six thousand girls undergo genital mutilation every day,

according to the World Health Organization. Many die, and others

live the rest of their lives in crippling pain.


• According to the WHO, one woman out of every five worldwide is

likely to be a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime.


All these figures are estimates; registering precise numbers for

violence against women is not a priority in most countries.


All the victims scream their suffering. It is not so much that the

world doesn't hear them; it is that fellow human beings choose not

to pay attention.


It is much more comfortable for us to ignore these issues,

especially when the problems are so widespread and for many, so far

away. And by "us," I include women. Too often, we are the first to

look away. We may even participate, by favoring our sons and

neglecting the care of our daughters.


Going forward there are three challenges:


Women are not organized or united. Those of us in rich countries,

who have attained equality under the law, need to mobilize to assist

our fellows. Only our outrage and our political pressure can lead to

change.


Next, there are the forces of obscurantism that want to close the

world off. The Islamists are engaged in reviving and spreading a

brutal and retrograde body of laws. Wherever the Islamists implement

Sharia, or Islamic law, women are hounded from the public arena,

denied education and forced into a life of domestic slavery.


Lastly, cultural and moral relativists sap our sense of moral

outrage by defending the position that human rights are a Western

invention. Men who abuse women rarely fail to use the vocabulary the

relativists have kindly provided them. They claim the right to

adhere to an alternative set of values — an "Asian," "African"

or "Islamic" approach to human rights.


This mind-set needs to be broken. A culture that carves the genitals

of young girls, hobbles their minds and justifies their physical

oppression is not equal to a culture that believes women have the

same rights as men.


Three initial steps could be taken by world leaders to begin

eradicating the mass murder of women. A tribunal like the

International Court of Justice in The Hague should look for the 113

million to 200 million women and girls who are missing. A serious

international effort must urgently be made to precisely register

violence against girls and women, country by country. And we need a

worldwide campaign to reform cultures that permit this kind of

crime. Let's start to name them and shame them.


In the past two centuries, those in the West have gradually changed

the way they treat women. As a result, the West enjoys greater peace

and progress. It is my hope that the Third World will embark on this

effort. Just as we put an end to slavery, we must end

the "gendercide."