Violence against women

Today, 25 November, is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

"By resolution 54/134 of 17 December 1999, the General Assembly designated 25 November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and invited governments, international organizations and NGOs to organize activities designated to raise public awareness of the problem on that day. Women's activists have marked 25 November as a day against violence since 1981. This date came from the brutal assassination in 1961, of the three Mirabal sisters, political activists in the Dominican Republic, on orders of Dominican ruler Rafael Trujillo (1930-1961)."

From this UN site, where there are more links and reports.

Browsing around the topic, I found the BBC has a sensible-looking advice site on domestic violence here.

The Home Office says two women a week on average are killed by their partners, and on average a woman is assaulted 35 times before she calls police.

I was having a conversation recently where someone said: "is it really two a week? You never hear about them."

If you want to find the murders in newspapers look in the "in brief" columns of the national papers on Mondays. You'll usually find a paragraph or two saying "The body of a woman was found in a house in XXX. A man aged x is helping police with their enquiries." (The stories only make it into the papers on Monday when there's little other news.)