A content warning: today we'll be talking about domestic violence. There have been a number of news stories that we've been paying attention to, whether it's the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, and what that means for Afghan women; the restrictive abortion law in Texas; or the Gabby Petito story has been all over the media. That's the woman who went missing and whose remains were recently found in Wyoming. And then there are the number of women of color and Indigenous women that go missing or are killed because of domestic violence: all the people we don't tend to hear about in the mainstream media.

So with everything going on in the news, it just felt timely to talk to an expert about women's rights and violence against women. Cheryl Thomas is the executive director of Global Rights for Women. She has spent nearly 30 years working to pass laws protecting women around the globe from violence and oppression.

Block Quote

Every Wednesday morning at 8:30 CST, Jill Riley connects with experts and local personalities for some real talk about keeping our minds and bodies healthy — from staying safe in the music scene, to exercising during a pandemic, to voting and civic engagement. Looking for more resources and support? Visit our friends at Call to Mind, MPR's initiative to foster new conversations about mental health. Subscribe to Wellness Wednesday as a podcast on Spotify, Apple, RSS, Radio Public, Stitcher, or Amazon Music.

Jill Riley: Could you tell me about Global Rights for Women?

Cheryl Thomas: Global Rights for Women was founded in 2014. And this is our mission: to end what the United Nations calls a pandemic. Long before the Covid pandemic, we knew that violence concerning girls is a pandemic globally of epic proportions, and one of the greatest human rights violations of our time. So we wanted to focus on legal and systemic reform that would really address violence against women and girls as a human rights violation.

I was reading that across their lifetime, one in three women — around 736 million — are subjected to physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner or sexual violence from a non-partner. And that number really hasn't changed over the past 10 years. I'm shocked to read that number, and I know that domestic violence is an issue.

Another statistic that has recently come out from the United Nations that is equally as breathtaking, and more so, is that 137 women die every day, globally, at the hands of family members, mostly male partners. So that is 50,000 women a year. And if we just stop and think about that statistic alone, and we know that that's not comprehensive, that's likely the tip of the iceberg because of what we know about women being able to report violence being received in a way that supports their equality and safety. Most women don't report violence. When they do, our systems have largely, in most parts of the world, failed them in intervening in really desperate situations where [women] know they're going to be in serious danger and harm.

We tend to talk about partner violence and women's rights. We live in the U.S., so we generally talk about us. What part of the world would you say that you're most concerned about right now?

I'm concerned about every part of the world, to tell you the truth. I'm really just so devastated about what's happening in Afghanistan. There's 20 million women there whose human rights to live free from violence, certainly, or even work or go to school, have pretty much been eliminated. And I don't disconnect that with the violence that happens to women in more developed countries. I don't disconnect it with what happened to Gabby Petito. All these forms of violence and inequality and oppression are connected, and that is our challenge as a global community. Minnesota is very much a part of the global community; to take every single one of those 137 women who die every day at the hands of a intimate partner, a family member, and do the kind of media reporting that Gabby Petito's death is getting...I'm actually grateful to see that media coverage around this young woman's death. This is the kind of media coverage we need for every single woman and girl's death due to gender-based violence.

It's hard to ignore the fact that Black and indigenous women do not get the kind of same coverage. How can that be changed?

Yeah, I think that you're absolutely right. We have a situation where we've got institutional racism and institutional misogyny, and it just creating a really dangerous, devastating world for marginalized women and women of color. In our own state, the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Task Force report that came out last year documents exactly what you said: Native women are 1% of the population of women in Minnesota, but 8% of suicides are Native women, and that's just disproportionate to the level of population they represent. So that is a real issue.

Women of color, marginalized women, immigrant women are disproportionately affected by violence. They suffer multiple oppressions. Their oppression is particularly dangerous as they navigate the world this way. They can't call the police, certainly, as we've seen so much danger when that happened. So when you're in your home — which we know is the most dangerous place for women and girls globally, in the private sphere in general, because of the oppression they they suffer from their male family members and partners. But they're not to be able to call the police because they fear for the safety of their male partners and family members. So that's a situation that is a huge barrier towards safety, equality, for women of color and accountability for violent abusers.

How do we reframe this conversation so that it includes the men committing violence against women? Should we be saying "preventing male violence" instead of "preventing violence against women"? I mean, I know when I was growing up, it's like, "Here's how you stay safe. Here's how you can prevent yourself from being raped, here's how you can prevent yourself from being abused." But the conversation from my point of view, was like, here's how we teach young boys and men to not abuse. Is that part of the conversation now?

I think it needs to be more and more because it just reflects the truth and reality. We just really need to be able to name the truth that male violence is the most common and devastating form of violence against women and girls. I do appreciate when people call that out male violence against women and girls, this is this is the primary cause of harm and homicide — like we see in the Gabby Petito video. The body camera on the police officer in that video really gives the public an understanding about the dynamics of male violence against women and domestic violence in particular that is so rooted in power and control and maintaining that power and control.

You could just actually see those behaviors that we have who worked in this field for years are so familiar with; we didn't see the violence itself, but we saw Gabby. She's tearful, she's in despair. She starts blaming herself, and that is so typical of a woman who is experiencing coercive controlling behavior from her male partner. [That] is an indicator of when we are going to see more serious harm or death or murder. We see the man in the video very much in control, shifting the focus to her and what she did wrong and her behavior and why he had to do this or that because of her behavior...that is very, very typical in domestic violence cases.

I think those body cameras can be transformational for our public understanding about violence and abuse, in the way [of] that graphic camera video we saw in the George Floyd murder. I think that the images are just very powerful in increasing understanding about these kinds of oppressive, violent acts; and like I say, I hope that can happen more. We can't have women wearing body cameras in their homes when they're being assaulted by their family members and intimate partners, but to see more images of what women are suffering at the hands of violent abusers, how transformative that could be. So I say I'm grateful for that video footage in increasing the understanding of what women are facing in alarming numbers all over the world.

If we suspect someone is the victim of domestic violence, or if anyone listening right now is the victim of domestic violence...I mean, there's the option to call the police, not everyone has a great experience with calling the police. Not everybody can find the help that they're needing there. But what are some other options? What are some other resources?

Well, the first thing that we always do before we take any steps, honestly, if you can safely — safely for her, safely for yourself — reach out to her be an ally, see what she tells are her needs, what would be helpful to her, that kind of support and affirmation and standing in solidarity with her can be very powerful. I think in an emergency situation, certainly if there's a gun in the home — which is a hugely devastating reality. We know that that's another indicator of when a woman will be killed by her intimate partner, [and she] may have to call the police. That's why we need to make sure that we are working with police to reform their practices so that when they respond, they're doing so in a way that prioritizes the safety of the victim and, and ensures that everybody's human rights in that situation are protected.

Wellness Wednesday is hosted by Jill Riley, and produced by Christy Taylor and Jay Gabler. Our theme music is a portion of the song "F.B. One Number 2" by Christian Bjoerklund under the Non Commercial Share Alike 3.0 International License. This week's photo is by Unarmed Civilian (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0). The image was altered: it was cropped, filtered to greyscale, and supplemented with a logo.