DATE: WED,30TH MAR, 2021
TIME: 4:00PM
VENUE: ONLINE ON MICROSOFT TEAMS
SPEAKER: DR. ELEANOR NWADINOBI
SYNOPSIS
For 1.3 billion women and girls around the world, living a life free of violence is a distant dream. For them, there is no easy path to justice. Laws, government systems, and social norms favour perpetrators. In courtrooms, media, communities, workplaces, and homes across the world, female victims of violence are often blamed, ignored and not believed, entrenching the world in a system of silence and impunity for this violation of human rights, this scourge that affects one in three women across the world. In addition to the impact this has on individuals, their families, workplaces, and communities, it is estimated that violence against women costs the global economy US$4.7 trillion per year, or 5.5 per cent of the global Gross Domestic Product. Not reacting is not just a human rights disaster, public health emergency, it is an economic crisis. In the context of COVID-19, Domestic and. sexualized violence is spiking. Women and children are forced to shelter with their abusers amid the necessary lockdowns to protect our communities all over the world. This global lockdown means women and children are now cut off from their support networks leaving them with nowhere to turn, and more often than not, locked down in silence. The violence pandemic s intersecting with the Covid-19 pandemic, and the mission to end violence against women and girls is more urgent than ever.