The Greatest Abuse - violence against women
"Surveys in recent years indicate that about a quarter of the world's women are violently abused in their own homes. Community-based surveys have yielded higher figures - up to 50 per cent in Thailand, 60 per cent in Papua New Guinea and the Republic of Korea, and 80 per cent in Pakistan and Chile. In the United States, domestic violence is the biggest single cause of injury to women, accounting for more hospital admissions than rapes, muggings, and road accidents combined.
"Such figures suggest that assaults on women by their husbands or male partners are the world's most common form of violence."
Violence and Children
"Every conflict forces children to live through some terrible experiences. Indeed millions of children have been present at events far beyond the worst nightmares of most adults. In Sarajevo, where one child in four has been wounded in the conflict, UNICEF conducted a survey of 1,505 children in the summer of 1993. It found that 97 per cent of the children had experienced shelling nearby and 20 per cent had terrifying dreams. Some 55 per cent had been shot at by snipers, and 66 per cent had been in a situation where they thought they would die . . .
"After the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 Dr. Albert Nambaje, clinical psychologist at the National Trauma Recovery Centre, reported: `Among the symptoms manifested by children are nightmares, difficulty in concentrating, depression and a sense of hopelessness about the future.' "
The Silent Emergency
"It is implicated in more than half of all child deaths worldwide - a proportion unmatched by any infectious disease since the Black Death. Yet it is not an infectious disease.
"Its ravages extend to the millions of survivors who are left crippled, chronically vulnerable to illness - and intellectually disabled. It imperils women, families and, ultimately, the viability of whole societies. It undermines the struggle of the United Nations for peace, equity and justice. It is a violation of child rights that undermines virtually every aspect of UNICEF's work for the survival, protection and full development of children.
"Yet the worldwide crisis of malnutrition has stirred little public alarm . . ."
Sources: UNICEF State of the World's Children, 1998, 1996 and 1995, Oxford University Press.
