Nearly a quarter of the 10,000 men interviewed had committed rape, while 4 percent had participated in gang rape
BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A U.N. study released Tuesday found pervasive abuse of women in the Asia Pacific region, with nearly half of the 10,000 men interviewed admitting to using violence against a female partner, almost one in four having raped a woman or girl, and 4 percent having participated in gang rape.
The study - which interviewed men in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Papua New Guinea - also said that the vast majority of men who admitted to rape, especially within a marriage, did not experience any legal consequences and that “impunity remains a serious issue in the region”.
This is partly because marital rape is not criminalised in four of these countries. Even in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea where it is criminalised, the laws are not strictly enforced, it said.
“The absence of legal sanction is important because it reinforces the socialization that a woman’s body belongs to her husband upon marriage,” said the study, which also interviewed 3,000 women and is the first to provide detailed data on such a large scale.
The U.N. study found a wide variety of factors - from childhood abuse and work stress to low levels of education, current food insecurity to traditional gender norms - that could lead to rape and other forms of violence against women.
Asia Pacific accounts for more than half the world’s population and has high levels of various forms of violence against women, with World Health Organization studies showing more than a third of women aged 15 to 49 in Bangladesh, Thailand, Samoa and Vietnam have faced some form of violence.
Recent media reports have largely focused on India, after the deadly gang rape of a 23-year-old trainee physiotherapist in December in Delhi. The verdict on the trial of the men accused of the rape is due Tuesday.
MOTIVATIONS, MYTHS
Men begin perpetrating violence at a much younger age than previously thought: of those who reported committing rape, half did it in their teen years, according to the study.
Almost a quarter of men in Bougainville in Papua New Guinea, and 16 percent in Cambodia, were 14 years or younger when they first committed rape. This shows the need for prioritising education of young children, it said.
The most common motivation men cite for rape is the belief that men have a right to sex with women regardless of consent. Alcohol, often assumed to be a trigger for violence, was the least common response given by men as the reason for rape.
“The acknowledged motivations for rape highlight its foundation in gender inequality: men reported that they raped because they wanted to and felt entitled to, felt it was entertaining or saw it as deserved punishment for women,” the report said.
Rape myths prevail, too. Between 44 and 80 percent of respondents, both male and female, believe it is not rape if the woman does not physically fight back - a misconception experts say does not take into account the fact that rape often involves threats and intimidation by someone with authority. That is, a victim who does not struggle may not consent.
VIOLENCE NOT INEVITABLE
The results also show that most men who had raped a man had also raped a female non-partner and may be more likely to participate in gang rape.
Men who reported using violence against a female partner were significantly more likely to have highly controlling behaviour and attitudes that go counter to gender equality, and to have experienced physical, sexual or emotional abuse as a child, the study said.
For instance, in Bangladesh and Cambodia, men who try to control their partners were more than twice as likely to use violence than those who did not use controlling behaviour.
More than 65 percent of male respondents in Papua New Guinea’s Bougainville and also in China reported experiencing emotional abuse or neglect as children, and these men were at least twice as likely to use violence against a female partner.
“Men’s use of violence against women is also associated with a complex interplay of factors at the individual, relationship, community and greater society levels,” said the report.
Simply stopping one factor - such as alcohol abuse - “will not end violence against women”, it added.
Understanding these factors and causes, however, could help in stopping violence from occurring again, said Emma Fulu, research specialist at Partners for Prevention and one of the authors of the report.
“While violence is pervasive, it is preventable, and we need to prioritise prevention,” she said. “The factors that we found associated with violence are changeable and that means violence is not inevitable.”
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