END ECONOMIC VIOLENCE

Good morning! It's amazing to have to back on this platform we hope you had a lovely week?

Today we would put the education series which ends phenomenally next week on hold in order to join well meaning persons all over the world to commemorate the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

The topic is very sensitive as, in as much as we want to ensure that no one is left behind in our bid to achieve a sustainable world before or by the year 2030, we must ensure that we do not by our zeal, exclude some set of persons and make devils out of a class of persons, men. The conventional thought as regards violence in women draws a default picture in the mind: men, husbands, male
employers and any or everything that epitomizes a man. It is possible for women to do violence to women and men alike.

This post seeks to draw our attention to an area we have barely paid attention to which I believe is one of the bedrocks for the continued violence against women; Economic Violence.

The important questions to this extent are, what's is violence and what constitutes economic violence?

According to thefreedictionary.com, to do violence to a thing means to inflict harm upon. Putting this definition in context, economic violence involves inflicting harm on the production, distribution and the use of income, wealth and commodities. It is safe to submit that any act that does harm on the production, distribution and the use of income, wealth and commodities of women constitutes economic violence against women which is a bane of international development and global peace thereby creating an enabling environment for retarded progress in terms of sustainable development.

Corporations and individuals consciously or unconsciously inflict economic harm on women through their actions. Examples  include, unpaid maternity leave, policies against marriage and pregnancy in the work place, child marriage which affects her schooling and ultimately her capacity to compete favorably for the scarce economic resources thereby leaving her at the mercy of the man that has married her, restrictions on promotion in the work place that reduce the chances of women, gender
unfriendly working environment such as time, sexual harassment and assault, poor health facilities in the work place and many more that you can imagine.

Bad governance is yet another issue that fosters economic violence, the failure of the government to ensure inclusiveness in its policies, the non involvement of the government in the control of policies in the work place that inflict economic harm on women, and the attendant effects of poor governance that make women prone to other forms of violence are ways in which the government has by omission, fostered economic violence against women.

The United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon highlighted the fact that, when women cannot work as a result of violence, their employment could be put at risk, jeopardising much-needed income, autonomy and their ability to leave abusive relationships. He added that the violence also results in lost productivity for businesses, and drains resources from social services, the justice system and health-care agencies. The net result “is enormous suffering as well as the exclusion of women from playing their full and rightful roles in society,”

The above statement, does justice to the issue raised in this post. This is a call on everyone to ensure that before 2030,economic violence against women is completely eradicated.

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