Angelina Jolie fears for women affected by domestic violence during the coronavirus pandemic.
The 45-year-old actress – who is a Special Envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees – worries that “decades of progress in women’s rights” could be ruined by Covid-19.
In an essay for TIME magazine, she wrote: “The prospect of ‘decades’ of progress in women’s rights being undone by the pandemic is intolerable and ought to be unthinkable.
“It is over half a century since the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights promised equal rights for all women, yet basic rights, protections and freedoms are still non-existent in some countries.
“In others, they are built on such fragile foundations that it seems the pandemic might sweep them away.
“These problems cannot be blamed entirely on the coronavirus. While the virus has inflamed inequities in societies, it did not create them.
“Humans – not disease – are responsible for unjust laws and systems, and racial and social inequality.
“The coronavirus is just the latest excuse for all that we didn’t fix ourselves.”
Angelina is devastated by the statistics surrounding domestic violence.
In the essay, she shared: “Even before the pandemic, which has led to a shocking rise in domestic violence, more than three women a day on average were murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in America.
“Globally, an estimated one in every three women faced being beaten, raped or otherwise abused during her lifetime, with in most cases, the abuser being a member of her own family.
“There were over three times as many female victims of intentional homicide in 2017 worldwide than victims of terrorism – and over half of them were murdered by a family member.
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Source: IOL
