On International Women's Day this year, global persecution watchdog group Open Doors International released its "Same Faith, Different Persecution" report that revealed the plight of Christian women all over the world who are being persecuted and abused.
This year's Gender-Specific Persecution Report revealed a 31% increase in physical violence against women and a 16% increase in cases of forced marriages, according to the Christian Post. The report also revealed how the pandemic has impacted gender-specific religious persecution (GSPR) globally.
According to the new Open Doors International report, GSPR has reached new heights over the last three years, as women face a "higher potential risk of religious persecution" compared to their male counterparts. The report gathered data from the top 50 countries listed in the watchdog group's World Watch List from October 1, 2019 to September 30, 2020.
Global gender persecution specialist for Open Doors International, Helene Fisher, who was also one of the authors of the report, explained that women have "fewer rights and fewer protections," making them more vulnerable as an "easier target" for abuses globally.
Fisher explained that Christian women and children are often "targeted for impunity," which means that when a particular community wants to prevent Christians from proliferating, they target women and girls instead. Oftentimes, there are no consequences for such agressions.
"It is a question of the women and girls having fewer rights for legal protections. [Women] are more vulnerable in the society, and they are just the easiest way to disable the Christian population," Fisher explained. The Open Doors report, which was also co-authored by Eva Brown, Elizabeth Lane Miller and Rachel Morley, also revealed how faith and gender combined put Christian women at a higher risk for abuse and persecution.
Open Doors identified five most common "pressure points" among Christian women in the top 50 countries in their World Watch List for religious persecution. They found that the top 5 "pressure points" are forced marriage, sexual violence, physical violence, psychological violence and forced divorce. What's worse is that the rates in which Christian women are experiencing these globally have all increased since the previous study in 2020.
New data from Open Doors shows that 90% of the top 50 countries where Christians and Christian women are most persecuted report forced marriage as a pressure point, while 86% of countries reported sexual violence. Psychological violence data also showed an increase from 40% last year to 74% this year, while forced marriage increased by 16% and physical violence increased by 31%.
Mission Box reported that gender-based violence, abduction and trafficking against Christian women increased especially throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, during which women are being exploited for their faith.
Fisher recounted the story of a South Asia woman named Lucina, a 19 year-old aspiring doctor who was kidnapped and raped because her father was Christian. According to the report, "It is a well-documented fact that rape can be used as a weapon of war. Women's bodies essentially become the second battlefield."
Fisher admitted that researched findings showed how COVID-19 "made the vulnerable even more vulnerable," especially Christian women. Today, there are more than 340 million Christians around the world who have fallen victim to extreme persecution and discrimination because of their faith.
