By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent

United Nations -- "Not a minute more" was the theme of the U.N. observance November 25 of the Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women.

"Violence is a daily and a deadly fact of life for millions of women around the world," said Noeleen Heyzer, executive director of UNIFEM, the Women's Fund at the United Nations. "We have found that it devastates lives and fractures communities and it has destroyed the potential, the gifts, the health of millions of women and girls around the world. It has impeded development in every nation."

Speaking at a press conference, Heyzer explained the theme of the U.N. observance. "Not a minute more of violence against women; not a minute more delay in the resources and political and creative partnerships that can make a difference," she said.

Despite the massive challenge of ending gender-based violence, progress has been significant, she said. A UNIFEM-conducted study showed a tremendous growth worldwide in initiatives aimed at ending violence against women in the past 10 years.

"Today 45 countries around the world have domestic violence laws; 11 out of the 12 countries in Southeast Asia have national plans to end violence against women; creative partnerships have been mobilized by governments, nongovernmental organizations and the U.N. to work on this issue," Heyzer said.

Providing statistics on the number of women who are the victims of violence is extremely difficult because the crimes are most often hidden behind a wall of secrecy erected by cultural attitudes, police indifference, misunderstandings of the issue, and lack of resources.

"Estimates are extremely difficult because it is a very difficult issue to cover," Heyzer said. "Most figures are estimates ranging between 20 to 60 percent of women" depending on the country.

Most of the available data comes from war or conflict situations, she said. Violence against women has been used as a weapon of war in a growing number of conflicts, with women victimized by systematic rape, gang rapes and infection with HIV/AIDS.

Four different kinds of violence are surveyed in the UNIFEM study: home-based violence such as domestic violence, dowry deaths and honor killings; traditional practices, which mainly occur in Africa; war situations; and violence related to the trafficking of women and girls.

UNIFEM emphasizes the need for investment, political will and cooperation to end violence, Heyzer said. UNIFEM measures a nation's political commitment to end violence by assessing policies, police training and work with local crisis groups to help women.

One positive factor for the movement to end violence against women has been the united support from groups around the world. No divisions on the issue exist between developed or developing countries, Heyzer said.

"A lot of focus has been put on this issue by women throughout the world and it is one issue that international solidarity has been very, very strong," Heyzer said. "It was the women's movement that put this issue on the human rights agenda in 1993."

"At this stage there is so much international consensus on what is right and what is wrong. Nowhere do you find anyone saying that violence is a right. It is wrong. It is a crime," she said.

UNIFEM administers a trust fund to help nongovernmental groups that are pioneering innovative solutions to end gender-targeted violence. The projects have received funds varying between $50,000 and $125,000 a year to develop ways to work within communities and countries to end violence.

To date the trust fund has provided grants totaling about $7 million to projects in 73 countries, but the requests far exceed available funds. In 2002 UNIFEM received project proposal requests totaling more than $15 million even though it only has $1 million to give annually.

Women who work to end violence in their communities in Rwanda, India, and the West Bank and Gaza also appeared at the UNIFEM-sponsored event at the U.N.'s New York headquarters.

Rakiya Omaar, a Somali human rights activist and director of African Rights, works with women survivors of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda to ensure that their plight is central to the quest for justice under way in Rwanda.

"Rape was a principal weapon of the genocide," Omaar said. "Hundreds of women and girls were raped and gang-raped. Their attackers were strangers as well as family friends, often men to whom they had looked for protection."

Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a professor of criminology at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, helps girls and women who are victims of so-called honor crimes.

"People are talking about it more and it's more visible," she said. "Collecting women's stories through grants like the trust fund is vital. It's only then that we can empower women to speak out and help themselves."

Archana Ramasundaram, a director in the Indian police force, has been instrumental in raising awareness about women's rights in her country's law enforcement, helping to establish new police approaches to assist victims of violence and arrest perpetrators.

"The essence of my career as a policewoman for the last 22 years has been all about caring and controlling -- caring for women and controlling those who harm them," she said.

"Dealing with violence against women has so far not been a high enough priority for the Indian police," Ramasundaram said. "But the relief on the faces of the women I have helped has convinced me that I am on the right track."

On the International Day of Violence Against Women, the World Health Organization (WHO) also released a report that verified UNIFEM findings on the extent of violence against women, showing that about half the women who are victims of homicide worldwide are killed by their domestic partners. The release of the report launched a global campaign to prevent violence, categorized by the agency as a major public health problem.