Thousands of women are killed or injured each year in deliberate acts of violence committed by soldiers, prison guards and most especially, the people they are familiar with including husbands, neighbours and employers. For instance, in Afghanistan, women may work only in the health sector. In Bangladesh, a seventeen-year-old was disfigured with acid for rejecting a suitor.
Statistics available from the Women and Juvenile Unit (WAJU) of the Ghana Police Service show over a thousand reports of wife beating recorded between January and September of the year 2004, in addition to the frightening majority which were not reported as a result of ignorance. Such an astronomical figure shows that violence against women is on the ascendancy despite worldwide progress in promoting women’s rights.
Violence against women affects the institution of family and the health of the community.
Broken homes can result in case where the woman sees this social evil perpetrated against her as unbearable, hence resulting in the children becoming delinquents.
Also, it can bring about unwanted pregnancies in cases of marital rape, which results in untold hardships if the couples are not affluent enough to manage a large family.
The health of the community is affected as some women begin to have psychological problems as a result of the ruthless behaviors of the perpetrator. In this case, the government has to use the money that would have been used in building schools to provide psychiatric care.
Production also decreases and poverty begins to increase when the needed manpower and human resource for development go amiss. Where the woman was the bread winner of the family the children are affected directly.
The problem can be prevented by producing posters on violence against women, which depict the pain and agony that women go through when they are tormented.
As an artist, I have been doing this “poster remedy for preventing violence against women” by drawing and adding some few words to my drawings to show how women look like when they are tormented. I have been pasting this at my school’s student notice board and this has had positive impact on parents and students who visit the notice board.
A man acknowledged as he told a colleague of mine that “the posters were cruel, it will be unacceptable for any human being to be treated in such a manner. I think dialogue is better in settling quarrels.”
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