United Nations Development Fund for Women

Michelle Bradt
Current Events 2
The United Nation’s article on domestic violence in Afghanistan is alarming. Since the outbreak of war in Iraq and now with the recent crisis in Lebanon, many around the world have forgotten the fighting and the subsequent instilling of democracy (if you can call it that) that the Bush administration started in Afghanistan in response to the attacks on September 11th. According to this article, however, some issues have not improved so vastly as our media and government would like us to believe. Domestic abuse- sexual, physical, or psychological- continues in Afghanistan, just as it does in every country throughout our world. More than eight out of every ten acts of domestic violence in Afghanistan, according to a study entitled Uncounted and Discounted done between January 2003 and June 2005, is perpetrated by a family member. Ten percent of attacks are made by women.
Clearly, domestic violence is an issue that affects the globe. No culture (that I am aware of) is void of its vice, and many cultures do little of anything to combat the problem. The United Nations has programs and committees devoted to the betterment of life for women throughout the world, and they strive to make higher goals and standards for gender equality in every nation. This isn’t enough. Governments local to each country, including the United States, need to make more of an effort to choke this problem and to hold the people of the world accountable for the way we treat our family members, particularly women and children, as they are most frequently the receivers of such abuses. This article points out the recent endemic in Afghanistan, but domestic violence and abuse is undoubtedly a global issue.
14 August 2006. United Nations Development Fund for Women. UN News Centre online. http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=19512&Cr=afghan&Cr1=