WHO Report on Domestic Violence

The WHO has published a report on domestic violence against women around the world, and it is not a pretty picture.

"Women are more at risk from violence involving people they know at home than from strangers in the street. There is a feeling that the home is a safe haven and that pregnancy is a very protected period, but that is not the case," WHO's director-general Lee Jong-Wook told a news conference.

"Domestic violence remains largely hidden."

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"Every 18 seconds, somewhere, a woman suffers violence or maltreatment ... We must put an end to this shameful practice," said Spain's health minister Elena Salgado, current president of WHO's annual health assembly.

Domestic violence can be sparked by dinner being late, not finishing the housework on time, disobeying or refusing to have sex, the report said. In many cases women agree that a man is justified in beating his wife under certain circumstances.

I remember reading several years ago that more women, in this country, will visit the emergency room because they were beaten or abused than to have a baby.