VOA慢速英语--另一大流行病：对妇女的暴力行为

One in three women worldwide will experience physical or sexual abuse in her lifetime.

"Violence against women has been called, by global leaders, the human rights issue of our time, a pandemic," said Cheryl Thomas, the head of the organization Global Rights for Women. "One hundred-thirty-seven women a day are killed by their intimate partners or their family members," she added.

In the United States, President Joe Biden is now asking lawmakers to provide more resources for the Justice Department's Office on Violence Against Women. The proposal calls for increasing its budget to $1 billion, almost two times the current amount.

Patricia Cumbie was a young adult in college when she was raped¹. A man attacked her at a party. "I remember at the time feeling like, ‘Oh, is what happened to me a crime or not?' And I think that's a very common reaction for a lot of survivors², you know, because violence against women is so normalized."

The United States has been a world leader in the violence against women movement. In 1994, Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which created the Office on Violence Against Women. Joe Biden, a senator at the time, led the push for that law. It was the first of its kind in the world.

Cumbie, who also works with Global Rights for Women, says the U.S. sets an important example.

"Domestic violence is the privilege in power that men have to abuse women," she said. "There is stranger danger," she continued, "but by and large, the violence is carried out by people that we know and love...."

That fact, she says, makes the issue more complex and difficult to talk about.

Comfort Dondo, a Zimbabwean immigrant in Minneapolis, says she spent five years in an abusive marriage.

"And when I called the Minneapolis Police Department... they would come, and they would not even talk to me or take a report," she said. "They would talk to him."

The abuse was not only physical, Dondo says. Her husband's better knowledge of the legal system resulted in her losing custody³ of her son. She is now seeking to get him back.

She said "When we talk about domestic abuse, it goes beyond just the beating. It is the emotional torture of alienating⁴ a woman from her babies."

Institutionalized sexism

Thomas says violence against women is accepted because most societies are used to seeing men in positions of power and control. The violence, physical and emotional, sometimes includes separating women from their friends and loved ones.

Domestic violence is closely related to other forms of inequality.

Dondo said her white husband has much more power over her, a Black woman, in America.

"I speak for African Americans, that's my experience, when we end up marrying white men," Dondo said. "The white man has more power over her, access to money, for good lawyers, language, and they also know the system very well."

Stopping violence before it happens

Victoria Banyard is a professor of social work and director of the Center on Violence Against Women and Children at Rutgers University. She thinks financing crime prevention is a good step but also that more money should be put toward stopping abuse before it starts.

Violence against women can take many forms, she points out, from verbal, emotional abuse and physical violence, to blocking a woman from her friends and loved ones, to economic abuse.

"If you're experiencing physical violence, for example, you might have to miss time at work," she said. "A woman might lose her job as a result. Sometimes, abusers also block victims from having a career at all."

There are many ways domestic violence affects women and holds them back economically, she said.

After escaping her marriage, Comfort Dondo went to school and completed a master's degree. Later, she started the nonprofit organization Phumulani which works to stop violence and abuse of women, especially those from African ancestry⁵.

She and other experts believe it is critical to include men in the discussion about stopping violence against women.

Men must be held, in her words, "accountable, with love ... so that they will not go and say, ‘We didn't know that was abuse.'"

Words in This Story

intimate-adj. having a very close relationship : very warm and friendly

privilege-n. a right or benefit that is given to some people and not to others

custody-n. the legal right to take care of a child (such as a child whose parents are divorced)

alienate-v. to make (someone) unfriendly : to cause (someone) to stop being friendly, helpful, etc., towards you

verbal-adj. relating to or consisting of words

1 raped   

v.以暴力夺取，强夺( rape的过去式和过去分词 )；强奸

参考例句：

• A young woman was brutally raped in her own home. 一名年轻女子在自己家中惨遭强暴。 来自辞典例句
• We got stick together, or we will be having our women raped. 我们得团结一致，不然我们的妻女就会遭到蹂躏。 来自辞典例句

2 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

3 custody   

n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留

参考例句：

• He spent a week in custody on remand awaiting sentence.等候判决期间他被还押候审一个星期。
• He was taken into custody immediately after the robbery.抢劫案发生后，他立即被押了起来。

4 alienating   

v.使疏远( alienate的现在分词 )；使不友好；转让；让渡（财产等）

参考例句：

• The phenomena of alienation are widespread. Sports are also alienating. 异化现象普遍存在，体育运动也不例外。 来自互联网
• How can you appeal to them without alienating the mainstream crowd? 你是怎么在不疏忽主流玩家的情况下吸引住他们呢？ 来自互联网

5 ancestry   

n.祖先，家世

参考例句：

• Their ancestry settled the land in 1856.他们的祖辈1856年在这块土地上定居下来。
• He is an American of French ancestry.他是法国血统的美国人。