(^50) | marieclaire.com.au
Global agencies such as the
United Nations have traditionally
collected data on gender violence as
a whole. The US State Department
offers tips for women but does not
break down data on violence against
travellers by gender, a spokesman
said. Experts find the lack of
such figures troubling.
In December, the bodies of Louisa
Vesterager Jespersen, 24, of Denmark,
and Maren Ueland, 28, of Norway,
were found with knife wounds in their
necks in the High Atlas Mountains of
Morocco. That same month, British
traveller Grace Millane disappeared in
Auckland, New Zealand, on the night
before her 22nd birthday; she was
found murdered days later. In March,
an Australian man was convicted of
kidnapping and raping a Belgian
traveller seeking work after keeping
her locked in his pig shed for two days.
There’s no question that women
face unique risks when travelling solo,
experts say. “We have evidence that
shows that women face risks that men
don’t face in public spaces, at home or
wherever they may be,” said Phumzile
Mlambo-Ngcuka, executive director
of UN Women, an organisation that
promotes female equality.
Increasingly, “wherever they may
be” includes alone in foreign countries.
But she added that violence against
female tourists was a thread in the
broader fabric of violence against
women around the world. “The root
cause of this kind of violence against
women in communities and in public
and private spaces has a lot to do with
the underlying gender stereotypes,
social norms, entitlement and
patriarchy,” Mlambo-Ngcuka said.
Still, it means women such as
Hannah Gavios, 26, discover horror
away from home. After university in the
States, she travelled to South-East Asia
on her own in 2016, visiting Thailand
on a break from teaching English in
Vietnam. One evening, she was walking
alone after dinner in Krabi, known for
its beaches and as a popular hangout
for young tourists, when a local man
offered to guide her back to her hotel.
She said she was afraid of getting lost,
so she followed him. But just as she
grew increasingly uneasy, he attacked.
Fleeing for her life, Gavios tumbled
from a cliff and fractured her spine.
The man sexually assaulted her while
she lay helpless for 11 hours. Gavios
was hospitalised for months, first in
Thailand and then at home in New
York, and had to learn to walk again
using crutches and custom leg braces.
Her attacker was eventually arrested
and sentenced to five years in prison.
Elly Warren, 20, wasn’t as
fortunate. The Melburnian was
travelling through south-eastern
Africa alone in 2016 when she was
murdered and dumped in a toilet
block in Mozambique. Warren had
spent six weeks volunteering for an
eco-research company called
Underwater Africa alongside marine
scientists. Her distraught mother
told Fairfax Media that her daughter
was “just one of those girls who
wanted to travel the world and see
everything she could before 30”.
S
easoned solo travellers say
that preparation can be the
key to minimising risk. For
Cassie De Pecol, 30, who
holds the Guinness World
Record for “the fastest time to visit all
“THE ROOT CAUSE
OF THIS VIOLENCE
AGAINST WOMEN
HAS TO DO WITH
UNDERLYING
GENDER STEREOTYPES,
ENTITLEMENT AND
PATRIARCHY”
sharon
(sharon)
#1