I will like to talk about religion, globalization and violence against women. Insights from my initial research for a doctoral degree in theology reveal a great deal of information on how women are treated.

Religion purports to bring peace and indeed holds a lot of potential for peace, yet it enshrines seeds of violence against women in many of its texts and rituals. For example, marriage rituals (in both African cultural and Christian settings) predispose the male partner in the marriage relationship towards violence against the female partner through the customary emphasis on the male domination of the man over and above the woman. It is important to understand the systemic nature of the issue of domestic violence against women: the meaning, causes, and impact, as well as the nature of the ritual violence that sets the stage for it.

In order to promote peace in families, it is necessary to review the domination model of gender relations and move towards a partnership model. The male-domination model of marriage is a primary root cause of violence against women and girls. In my view, it contributes to why some cultures divest women of the right to property inheritance. In the past and to a great extent the present, daughters were denied the rights to inherit their parent’s property. And I think it is related to the fear that the family’s property might go elsewhere. So one way of ensuring that it remains in the family is by directing the inheritance through the male line, assuming the male stays in the family. So even if that male is an imbecile the property goes to him.

Religion and violence against women

And this is the root of a number of other things that women suffer from, like the oppression of widows in terms of depriving them of inheritance of their spouse’s property. Another inequality is male child preference. The denial of women’s rights of inheritance is at the root of all these; and dealing with it will also solve other related problems.

Some people in the gender and development world seem to under-estimate the strategic place religion holds in the lives of the women, regardless of their affiliations. By distancing themselves from looking at its ramifications, they miss an opportunity to understand what controls women’s minds (the belief that ‘this is how God wants it’) and therefore bypass an opportunity of meeting and helping women.

Economic violence against women; the role of globalization

At a recent workshop, a woman participant remarked that among the most vulnerable women on earth are married and the family’s breadwinners. From that participant’s experience and observation, once a man loses his job and ceases to be a strong wage earner, his ego is deflated and he begins to take it out on the woman. Nothing the ‘wage-earning’ woman does will ever please him. The man becomes prone to committing all kinds of violence against her, including berating her and blaming her for his woes.

Now, in the light of what many trans-national companies are currently doing in the wake of globalization:  giving short-term contract jobs (with no job security); down-sizing, laying off staff, and moving to areas/countries with cheaper labor, throwing more and more families into deeper poverty. In this situation women and children are the worst affected. Within and across national borders, women and children are also the ones that get trafficked the most. I understand that the revenue from trafficking surpasses by far, that from arms sales.

Again, while many governments claim to be countering trafficking, they condone prostitution, which is the very engine that drives the trafficking of women. They do not appear to be as strict about trafficking of women as they are about drug trafficking. Those parts of the world that use capital punishment for drug-trafficking also have the highest rates of trafficking in women.

Therefore, we call upon the United Nations to hold such governments to account. There is no better organ to do this than the United Nations.

The opinions expressed in this text are those of the author.