Hi, my name is jonathan betz, and im from dallas, texas, and im an anchor for al jazeera america. I started in a Small Television station in rural arkansas. Its a part of the country that often gets overlooked. But there are a lot of fascinating people there, a lot of fascinating stories there. I like that al jazeera will Pay Attention to those kinds of places. What drew me to journalism is i like the idea that we are documenting history. Al jazeera documents it like none other. And to be a journalist, and to be part of a team like that . Thats an incredible blessing. Were talking about women and the problems of rape and Sexual Violence that so many face. First, some context. A recent United Nations report on Sexual Assault in the Asia Pacific Region revealed some disturbing trends. More than 10,000 men from bangladesh, cambodia, papa new guinea were asked questions like, did you ever have sex with your partner when you knew that she didnt want to, but you thought she should because shes your partner. And did you have sex with a girl who was too drunk to say if she wanted to or not. The answer was yes. The common motivations men had was they had a right because the woman involved was a partner. The second was the man was bored and thought it would be fun. The third was punishment, the man was angry and wanted to get revenge. The one of the lead authors of the lead study, a Research Specialist for the United Nations partners for prevention program. Here in our washington studio mary ellsberg, and still with us from new delhi is Kavita Krishnan from the womens association. This could not have been an easy survey to conduct. Youre asking very personal questions, and asking men what theyve done. You didnt go out and say, did you rape a woman . Youre asking about their experience, why . Well, the word rape really can be a very subjective term and it could be understood differently across different culture contexts. And men themselves may not see their actions in those terms. It was important to ask about very specific acts that we could then compare across countries and ask men about whether they perpetrated those acts, how often, against whom, and during what time period. So we askedwe try to describe an objective act like have you ever physically forced a woman to have sex when she didnt consent, and things like that to enable us to get a better picture of whats actually happening. Was it hard to have those conversation . Did the men have an awareness of what they had done. Well, an important part of this study and collecting this extremely sensitive information, particularly around Sexual Violence is actually that the survey, those questioned in particularly were done in a totally anonymous format. So we used handheld computer devices, ipod touches, actually, that had an unique app programmed on them in the local languages with the corresponding audio track so the men could answer those sensitive questions in a totally anonymous way. So not even the interviewer knew what that man was reporting. So we tried to get an effective picture, but then we dont know, you know, how they, themselves, would describe whether they thought that was rape or not. That was sort of not the objective in the sense. Mary ellsberg, how incredible is it that men are willing to admit these things . Its not as surprising as one would normally think. The degree to which men were willing to discuss these having raped or beaten women in their lives shows the degree to which its considered a normal thing, and its not anything to be ashamed of, and the fact that they do it because of sexual entitlement. They think theyre allowed to do it, and there is no reason that they shouldnt talk about it. Kavita krishnan. Tell us what you learned as you worked with this. Rape is an act of desire or an act of sort of unbridled desire, and this is a specifically male function that cant be controlled, and women should not provoke it. But we know, dont we, in the womens movement, that we have an understandingwe have arrived at an understanding that rape is actually about a sense of power over someone else. If there is a pleasure derived there, it is pleasure derived from the other persons helplessness, the sense of powerlessness from the other person. It is a crime of power, very much. Mary ellsberg youve done research on this from the womens perspective for a long time now. Why is it important to hear two perspectives. This is a very important moment, and the u. N. Study is a landmark study following in the multi country study that took on Domestic Violence on womens health, and that surveyed women in 10 countries. We found approximately one out of three women had been beaten or raped in their life sometimes, and something that is also confirmed by this data, its usually by a husband or somebody theyre close to in their family, and something similar came out on the data on the mens side as well. Tell us what you learned in terms of motivators. We learned that men perpetrate violence, but what is driving their violence tendencies . Is it poverty, anger, the feeling of disempowerment . I think its a complex interplay is what we found. We asked the men about their direct motivations. And as you mentioned the most common motivation related to sexual entitlement, and then followed by some form of entertainment seeking. But we also looked at the data to try to understand what characteristics, factors, increase the likelihood of a man using violence, and here it was things related to gender attitudes. For example, men who asserted control over their partners. Men who had sex who had transactional sex, and factors relating to mens own experiences of violence. Men who had experienced abuse as children or witnessed their own mother being abused were more likely to use violence. There is no one single factor. But it is this complex interplay, but very much driven by gender inequality, and these ideas of what it means to be a man that are related to dominance over women. Mary ellsberg when you talk about poverty, its its an over simplification. It is true that in poor environment there is more violence against women in general, but we dont really see poverty as a cause of violence. We see it as one of many, many factors that are leading to it, but as emma said, gender inequality , norms are really the ones that are probably really driving violence the most. And briefly, kavita, india is a multi layered society. The men found guilty of this horrible rape crime were from lower class, but this is not an issue that is just a lowerclass issue in india. No, certainly not. In fact, thats exactly what weve been underlining, that there isnt any kind of possibility to arrive at a profile to say that poverty or poor men tend to rape more than privileged or richer men. We have no such evidence at all. So what we keep reminding people is that women, too, are poor. In this case these men who committed the crime were migrant poor, but so was the victim herself. She, too, was a migrant woman in the city. So this is not a crime where poverty was the main factor. I agree to the person who just spoke before me. It is absolutely right that there are je gender norms working there. But i think we need to go beyond understanding this as a culture phenomenon alone. Violence against women, we have to see what produces that culture . What are the structures, the material and economic structures that produce this cul culture. When we come back well hear about the solution. Well hear from our guests about what to do. What happens when social media uncovers unheard, fascinating news stories . It drives discussion across america. Share your story on tv and online. Welcome back to inside story. Were talking about Sexual Violence towards women. Lets go to emma fulu, also mary ellsberg, director of global womens institute, and kavita krishana. Weve heard about people taking matters in their own hands by staging protests. These kinds of actions help women to show the world that its not the women who are to blame for rape, that the accountability is with the women who rape. That they have a right to walk and to dress the way they want to, and its really shifting, as k avita said, shifting the accountability of the rape from the victim. What are the discussions going on in fixes things, and in terms of creating solutions . Were trying to emphasize here that we really arent interested in politicians from the government or opposition telling us how much they want rapists to be hanged. We are trying to tell them that we are interested in knowing how much money they plan to allocate for Rape Crisis Centers in india, across the country, how much money they plan to allocate to ensure that we have more courts and judges in india so trials can be speedier rather than rape trials taking over a decade in some cases. And which want to know how much money they plan to reallocate for rape survivors of how to rebuild their lives. We would like people in public positions who make rape culture remarks, they really should face some kind of action. If they are policemen, judges, they should not be allowed to remain in their seats. If theyre politicians, we feel that people should teach them an lesson in elections. Emma folu, how does this happen on an individual level . How can men and boys be worked with to change the culture . Yes, i think its very important at the same time were addressing accountability and criminal justice responses to really think about how we stop this from happening in the first place, how do we prevent Sexual Violence. And that really require working with individual young boys and young men, all the way through communities, societies, and government levels. There are a number of things we can do. Schoolbased programs had some success. There are Community Programs and parenting programs to reduce child abuse, which is an underlying driver. Mary ellsberg we talked about india. Were talking about the u. N. Study that looks at the asia pacific religion specifically, but this is a global issue. I want to point out its not just an issue for other places outside of the united states. We have rape culture here, and weve seen it with the steubenville rape, and how people reacted to that. Remind us of that. The steubenville rape was of a woman who was gang raped repeatedly and then the thens around in social media. There have been studies of evaluations of different kinds of intervention to pre prevent violence, punishment never works. What most works as emma said are communitybased solutions. We now have several of them, not just in the united states, but also in africa and asia that is showing that you can work with men, women, and young people, and you can change norms and power relations. You mentioned young people. Not just women but also men are taking to the streets and talking. Emma folo. What is the drinks in terms of the age gap . Are you seeing a difference among young people . We found a couple of things. We found that rap rape, there were teenagers that committed rape. That highlights the need that we need to start working with much younger boys if were going to be able to stop this from occurring in the first place. But we did also see that gender attitudes were more equitable among the younger generation. There is change happening, and certainly change is possible. I think its just a matter of really prioritizing this at the highest levels, and i think from a global perspective, getting it on the post 2015, and prevention of violence against women is a priority, and at the same time working with individual young people and through communities. Thank you so much to all three of you. We appreciate you being with us. Thats all from the team in washington, d. C. And from me, libby casey for now. But you can keep this conversation going by logging on to our Facebook Page or send us your thoughts on twitter. Our handle is aj insidey story am. Thanks for watching. You are watching al jazerra, i am stephanie sy. Here are the top story at this hour. 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