The
United Nations (UN) released a new
report on violence against women in the Asia Pacific region. For the report, 10,000 men were interviewed and nearly half of them admitted that they have used violence against a female partner and almost a quarter reported having raped a women or a girl. However, the vast majority of men who reported that they have committed rape also indicated that they did not experience any legal consequences, particularly when the rape occurred within a marriage.
The report interviewed men from Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Papua New Guinea. The study found that the most common motivation men cited for committing rape was the belief that men have a right to sex with a woman regardless of her consent. The report also found that men are perpetrating sexual violence at a very young age, with half of the respondents reporting that they first committed rape as a teenager.
One of the authors of the report, Emma Fulu, said “While violence is pervasive, it is preventable, and we need to prioritize prevention. The factors that we found associated with violence are changeable and that means violence is not inevitable.”