i'd like to talk about domestic violence it seems to me that widespread violence
against women is still one of our most crucial and pressing issues
your reaction to that
absolutely
does it plague all societies
it plagues all societies it's indemic in every society
see one of the problems is that we do not really have uh... very systematic
empirical data
to say one in two women
is faces domestic violence but the existing data that we do have shows that between
a quarter to fifty percent of women
um... worldwide
have faced domestic violence at some point in their life
that means one in almost every other woman
does face domestic violence across
cultures
across income strata
across educational levels so it's it's universal
do most countries have laws prohibiting
domestic violence
not many have laws
prohibiting domestic violence
uh... one is that one thing that has happened is that the
in latin america and the united states there was a inter-american convention
on violence against women so as a result of signing that convention
quite a few of the latin american countries have begun to put on legislation
uh
provisions against domestic violence
I was just going through there was a review of seventeen countries basically
latin american countries
in south america and north america do have some
provision
will the laws be enforced do you believe
there is much there is quite a bit of what is that phrase
a slip between the cup and lip
it's huge but uh... domestic violence laws specific laws
addressing domestic violence can be very helpful in terms of bringing the
issue to the attention of law enforcement
but really any most countries in the world if not all countries have assault laws
which prohibit assault and domestic violence is clearly a form of assault
so i think the the real challenge for us is how to how to get law enforcement to
work for women
and if i could just go back to the point you made at the very beginning i think it's
not just about women in corporate boards we need women everywhere we need women
in the police force we need women in the judiciary so that when women come in
there will be some more understanding of what they might be going through some
more willingness to believe something they say
and that right now i think women feel like everything's stacked against them
when they go to the police and the police really are siding with the person
who abused them that's something you hear commonly all over including in this
country and so laws are helpful but they're just a first step we need a
whole reorientation of
of of law enforcement in order to to address this problem effectively although
there are some of my colleagues who would who would argue that practice in
the domestic violence area that the cards are really now stacked against men
here in the united states that's not necessarily so i mean i think it
it's true as jessica said
that it's important to take a step back because
fundamentally there is an impression
that there is a clear demarcation between private and public
and domestic violence
conjugal familial
is perceived as being private
and one of the important
angle to look at
is the laws about assault and and applying them
but the one of the drawbacks of that is that domestic violence is not
necessarily exclusively
uh... corporal
violence
you know there is
psychological battering there is omission of
uh...
sex money
there is threat
uh... you know there is control i mean fundamentally it's it's again the whole
subjugation and control
and it's a reeducation and an understanding
of how violence
is perceived
by the person
who is experiencing it
you know a lot of the violence doesn't necessarily start
with corporal violence
it it's
very often
uh... verbal assault
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