Millions of women throughout the world live in conditions of abject deprivation and attacks against, their fundamental human rights for no other reason than that they are women.

In South Asian countries, the culture of patriarchy is deeply entrenched, making a strong foundation for gender biases consequent upon which, women folks have to suffer.

Discrimination against women in many families in South Asia begins even before birth with sex-selective abortions. The preference for sons is still strong, while daughters are considered an economic liability.

As the world is moving ahead and advancing in nearly all fields of life, the issue of domestic violence has not meted out effectively. The bleak figures show that millions of women and girls are forced to marry and have sex with men they do not desire. Women are unable to depend on the government to protect them from physical violence in the home with sometimes, fatal consequences, including increased risk of HIV/AIDS infection. We are still living in a world where, women do not have basic control over what happens to their bodies.

In Pakistan, each year large numbers of women are beaten, tortured or burnt by their husbands or families.

In India, crime against women is committed every three minutes, one rape every 29 minutes, one dowry death every 77 minutes, one case of cruelty by husband and relatives every nine minutes.

In Afghanistan, a family member such as a husband, father-in-law, son or cousin commits more than eight out of every 10 acts of violence against women. And in many of the remaining cases, the perpetrator is someone known to the woman.

Regarding Bhutan, in 2005, doctors at the hospital treated 87 victims of domestic violence and 8 victims of sexual assault, most of them women.

One year later in 2006, the figure increased to 117 for victims of domestic violence and the number of victims of sexual assault jumped to 33. However, most of the cases were not reported at all.

Nepal reports 66% of the women in the country endures verbal abuse, 33% emotional abuse and 77% of the perpetrators of violence to be family members. Fifty eight percent of women who suffered domestic violence confirmed daily abuse.

In Sri Lanka, it is estimated that around 60% of the women are subject to domestic violence. Even with such high figures, domestic violence is still seen as normal and a private matter.

In Iran, two out of every three Iranian women have experienced discrimination and domestic violence from the father or other male members of the family. For the vast majority of Iranian women, married life is the beginning of horror, pain, and humiliation she is the victim of her husband and his family members. 81 out of 100 married women have experienced domestic violence in their first year of marriage.

Bangladesh, 14% of all maternal deaths result from domestic violence and family members commit 80% of violence against women.

Bottom line

Despite the scale of the problem, there has been no specific legislation to deal with actual abuse or the threat of abuse at home.

Women in the region work equally hard as men and are an integral part of the development of the countries yet the society have always overlooked it.

In all, gender violence in South Asia needs to be given much more attention to than what the governments are currently giving the issue. In addition, the family especially the male members would have to come forward to remove this cancer of domestic violence, which is rotting the society.