Bangladesh top in South Asia: Unicef
In Bangladesh, one in every five girls aged between 15 and 19 is sexually abused by her husband or partner, a Unicef study has found.
“In this region [South Asia], this type of abuse is most common in Bangladesh,” according to the study based on data collected from 2005 to 2013.
The rate of adolescent girls who ever experienced physical and/or sexual violence is 47 percent in Bangladesh. The rate of women aged 20 to 49 years who ever experienced such violence is even higher in the country, close to 50 percent.
The report, titled “Hidden in plain sight,” says the adolescent Bangladeshi victims are less likely to report the matter than adults, with more than four in ten girls convinced that wife-beating is sometimes justifiable.
In Pakistan, 53 percent victims believe their husbands are entitled to punish them. The rate is 70 percent in Bhutan.
The thought is prevalent among 89 percent of girls in Guinea, followed by 84 percent in Afghanistan.
About 47 percent of Indian husbands of the adolescent girls take it for a right to beat their wives, 45 percent of them being satisfied with the situation.
The analysis was done by Unicef's data and research division and was funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
“Everyday violence may be pervasive, but it is not inevitable,” wrote the division's Director Jeffrey O'Malley in the report's foreword.
Violence against children has been found to be a global phenomenon, regardless of economic and social status, religion, ethnicity and culture.
Eventually, the child victims have the process of their natural development hampered, showing poor performance at school, ultimately losing potential and ability to produce.
The report underlined social acceptability as an obstacle to eliminating the problem in the absence of stringent implementation of law and the absence of child protection measures.
A child witnessing violence in households internalises the act as a way of settling disputes when grown up and that's how the problem remains persistence in the society, said the report.
Analysing data from 190 countries, the study also found that one in five homicide victims worldwide is a child and as many as 120 billion girls are forced to have sex before turning 20.
The report also says that in Mozambique and Tanzania boys are less willing to seek redress for violence than girls. It is difficult to address the problem as boys do not consider violence against them a problem.
In 2012 alone, homicide took the lives of almost 95,000 children and adolescents worldwide, while the number was 1,500 in South Asia.
As many as 12 children per 100,000 are victim of homicide in Afghanistan, followed by Pakistan and India with four and two respectively.
In Bangladesh, only one child per 100,000 becomes homicide victims, with many countries, including Italy, UK and Germany, remaining successful in protecting every child against homicide.
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