Violence and Exploitation of Women and Children - Essay Example

Violence and Exploitation of Women and Children: It is the fundamental right of humans to live free from violence. Despite that, every year, millions of women and children have to go through such traumatic experiences as rape, mutilation and abuse all over the world in general and in US in particular. Quite often, the cases go uninvestigated and not many culprits are held accountable for their heinous acts. Women and children are the biggest sufferers of violence everywhere in the world and specifically US.

One of the many reasons behind this fact is that women and children are physically relatively weaker members of society as compared to men. Children are no less exposed to violence than women. In fact, many of the girls that are raped and mutilated are also children. According to the estimates recorded by Feminist.com (2008), as many as 17.6 per cent of women in US have undergone forced rape of which, 21.6 per cent were not even 12 years of age at the time of first attempt of rape and another 32.

4 per cent were aged between 12 and 17 years. Baum (2005) has noted that likelihood of children and adolescents aged between 12 and 19 years to be exposed to violence as compared to adults were more than twice. Thousands of children are abuse, physically, emotionally or both in US every year. “A large proportion of children surveyed (38.7 percent) reported more than one direct victimization (a victimization directed toward the child, as opposed to an incident that the child witnessed, heard, or was otherwise exposed to)” (Finkelhor et al., 2009, p. 7).

Many women and children are victimized by their own relatives. It is interesting to note that a vast majority of the women are raped by their own ex-husbands, boyfriends or room mates. According to Feminist.com (2008), 64 per cent of the women who are raped in US are related to the rapists. The rapists usually take revenge from the girls for their personal grudge. Women have many reasons not to report the incidents of violence. In the Eastern countries, they are not very optimistic about getting justice as the judicial systems in place are not very efficient.

Besides, women also choose not to speak of the shameful incidents as it only brings more harm to their image in the family as well as in the society. Although the judicial system in place in US is much more powerful than many other countries in the world, yet the trend is not very different in US either. No more than only 50 per cent of the incidents of domestic violence in US are told to the police. Studies have shown that African American women are the major reporters of domestic violence to police in US.

In order to improve the condition of law and order in any country, it is imperative that women and children are provided with security and protection. Women and children themselves need to be more vocal about their sufferings so that the attention of authorities must be driven towards these areas that really deserve attention. References: Baum, K. (2005). Juvenile Victimization and Offending, 1993–2003. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice. Feminist.com. (2008). U.S. Statistics. Retrieved from http://www.feminist.com/antiviolence/facts.html. Finkelhor, D.

, Turner, H., Ormrod, R., Hamby, S., and Kracke, K. (2009). Children’s Exposure to Violence: A Comprehensive National Survey. U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved from http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/227744.pdf.