Torture and Rape
Sexual assault, rape, and torture are often used to oppress, dominate, and punish women and girls. One out of every three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime.1 Rape is also increasingly a weapon of war. In Rwanda alone, up to half a million women were raped during the 1994 genocide.2 Although rape is a crime in almost every country, many rapes go unreported because of the victim’s embarrassment or fear of retribution. In South Africa, a woman is raped every 83 seconds—but only one in 20 cases is reported to the police.3 Women and girls face other forms of torture as well. In India alone, 15,000 women are killed each year in dowry murders.4 Worldwide, 5,000 women are killed each year in kitchen fires designed to look like accidents.5
Marie’s Story
Marie*, an immigrant girl from Mexico, came home one day to find her mother lying in a pool of blood, unconscious on the floor. She had been severely beaten by her husband, Marie’s stepfather. Although Marie’s mother had been repeatedly abused by her husband, this time it was more severe than ever before. Marie called 911. The police and trauma team air-lifted Marie’s mother, who had sustained a serious head injury, to the hospital.
When Marie’s mother was discharged from the hospital, mother and daughter had nowhere safe to stay, so they returned to the only home they knew. Her mother told police that she was afraid of her husband and asked them to remove him from the trailer the family shared. The police arrested Marie’s stepfather, but he was only jailed for a month. Upon his release, he went into hiding from the police and secretly returned to the trailer. He was outraged that Marie had called for help. In revenge, he raped her. At age 11, Marie became pregnant.
Marie and her mother were afraid to stay any longer. Tahirih and a team of advocates successfully arranged emergency housing for them at a secure women’s shelter, far from Marie’s stepfather. Tahirih, with the support of Crowell & Moring, filed a U visa petition for Marie and her mother. On November 17, 2005, it was approved. At 12 years old, Marie gave birth to a baby girl, whom she is now raising with her mother.
1The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, “Ending Violence Against Women,” Populations Reports: Issues in World Health, Series L, No.11, XXVII, Population Information Program, December 1999.
2UN International Women’s Day 2007: Ending Impunity for Violence Against Women and Girls, Facts and Figures, http://www.un.org/events/women/iwd/2007/factsfigures.shtml, last visited June 13, 2007.
3UNIFEM Consultation and Planning Workshop, Handout 2: Gender-based violence, some facts, statistics, and attitudes, Enhancing Protection from Gender-Based Violence in Populations Affected by Armed Conflict (Nairobi, Kenya, January 2005).
4Partha Banerjee, A Matter of Extreme Cruelty: Bride Burning and Dowery Deaths in India 1, No. 1, November 1997. Quoting, Rani Jethmalani, Ed, Kali’s Yug: Empowerment, Law and Dowry Deaths, (New Dehli, India: Har-Anand Publications, 1995).
5Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, Women in an Insecure World, http://www.unicef.org/emerg/files/women_insecure_world.pdf, last visited June 8, 2007.
*Client’s name has been changed to protect privacy
