Beheaded, groped, beaten: violence against women in Asia is reaching alarming levels
- Women have faced increased violence and abuse during the Covid-19 pandemic
- Some of the most egregious cases involved a young woman who was beheaded in Pakistan and a domestic worker who alleged being beaten by her employer in Hong Kong
On the heels of International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, This Week in Asia is highlighting some forms of violence that women and girls are grappling with:
Tortured, beheaded, and groped
Among the most recent high-profile cases was Noor Muqaddam, 27, who was tortured and beheaded in Islamabad in July. According to the local press, the charge sheet said that Zahir Jaffer, the main suspect in the case, kept her captive for three days and, when she tried to escape, the security guard and the gardener shut the main gate.
Jaffer’s parents were also charged with abetting the crime because the pair allegedly knew that Noor was being held against her will, but did not inform the police.
In August, Ayesha Ikram, a TikTok creator, was harassed and groped by some 400 men while she was shooting videos in Lahore’s Greater Iqbal Park.
“The crowd was huge and people were scaling the enclosure and coming towards us. People were pushing and pulling me to the extent that they tore my clothes,” she said in a police statement, according to local news outlet Dawn.
Trapped with abusive partners, forced to marry
Some 736 million women and girls around the world – almost one in three – have experienced sexual violence at least once in their life. And this figure does not include sexual harassment. But the Covid-19 crisis has aggravated these issues.
Domestic violence has increased in various countries during the pandemic.
“Domestic violence is a commonplace issue … However, Covid-19 has increased opportunities and frequency for domestic violence, which has led to an increase in the number of cases admitted to shelter,” she said.
Linda S.Y. Wong, executive director of the Hong Kong-based Association Concerning Sexual Violence Against Women, said calls for help from women and girls were increasing.
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From April 2020 to March this year, 2,665 requests for assistance were received by the non-profit helpline and its online chatting service. This corresponded to the highest figure in four years.
“Over the past year, the increased homestay time has aggravated emotional and family problems faced by some victim-survivors of sexual violence, which increased their needs for emotional support,” Wong said.
Lacking access to networks of support such as in-person school or college classes, many girls and young women – including some belonging to ethnic minorities in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom – have also faced an increased risk of forced marriage amid the pandemic.
Slapped, threaten, and stressed
Migrants have consistently faced an “invisible wall” when it comes to accessing basic services – which means they have been disproportionately exposed to, and affected by, the coronavirus, said the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent in a report released this week.
Many have reported symptoms of depression and overwork. But some have also faced physical violence. In Hong Kong, a foreign domestic worker alleged that she was abused for over a year, sparking outrage among the community of some 370,000 workers – most of who are women from the Philippines and Indonesia.
Eden Gumba Pales, 37, accused her employer of subjecting her to prolonged physical abuse, including being slapped in the face, hit with a spatula, being forced to eat porridge spiked with detergent, and having her head hit against a wall for forgetting to clean the children’s toys.
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The worker from the Philippines, who claimed she faced a death threat, also said she had to work excessive hours and that she could not go out on her days off.
She eventually fled her employer’s home on May 30 and has taken the case to court. The next hearing is expected to take place in January.
Pales’ situation was aggravated due to the pandemic, during which domestic workers had been “burdened with additional workload and lengthened working hours”, said Shiela Bonifacio, chairperson of the migrant rights group Gabriela Hong Kong.
“The policies of the Hong Kong government like the mandatory live-in [requirement], no regulation of working hours, the two-week rule [in case a worker is fired]” had placed workers “in a vulnerable situation, and it must stop,” she said.
04:21
Life inside a Taliban-run prison for Afghan women
Politics and oppression
Political instability across the region has also led to challenges for women.
Demonstrations led by women demanding that the Taliban respect their freedoms have been met with violence, with many saying that they have received death threats.
Frozan Safi, a 29-year-old activist and economics lecturer, was shot and killed in northern Afghanistan. She went missing on October 20 and her body – riddled with bullets – was later identified in a morgue in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
The Fuller Project reported that, since the military coup, women’s rights had diminished. Some were asked for bribes while crossing military checkpoints during martial law in Yangon, some were verbally and sexually harassed.
01:59
‘No other choice’: Afghan parents sell young daughters into marriage amid starvation and poverty
Spy cameras and blackmail
In October, a group of men was arrested in South Korea, after bribing a motel worker to install spy cameras in all rooms. They were able to film hundreds of guests without their consent, then blackmailed them by threatening to release the footage.
South Korean authorities also arrested an elementary school principal last month, who had installed a spy camera inside a bathroom used by the school’s female staff.
“Individually, these cases are horrifying. Together, they help paint a picture of how pervasive digital sex crimes – digital images, almost always of women and girls, captured and shared without consent, and sometimes manipulated – continue to be in South Korea,” wrote Erika Nguyen, senior coordinator of the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, who called for a comprehensive action plan.
