Mandag og tirsdag mødes delegerede fra 94 lande, 20 internationale organisationer og 76 ngo´er for at diskutere, hvad de kan stille op mod væbnet vold.
Med i bagagen har de en diger rapport fra den uafhængige organisation Global Burden of Armed Violence, der dokumenterer, at 9 ud af 10 mord sker uden for konfliktområder.
På rapportens top 10 over verdens farligste lande, er den mellem-amerikanske lilleputstat El Salvador nummer 1, og 5 af de 10 mest voldelige lande ligger i Latinamerika. På en tredjeplads ligger Honduras, fulgt af Colombia, Venezuela og Guatemala.
An estimated 526.000 people die violently every year, but only 55.000 of them lose their lives in conflict or as a result of terrorism, reveals the second edition of the report, released on 27 October 2011 in Geneva. The report also finds that 396.000 people—including 66.000 women—are victims of intentional homicide (murder).
54.000 die as a result of so-called ‘unintentional’ homicides (manslaughter), and 21.000 violent deaths occur during law enforcement actions.
The Global Burden of Armed Violence is based on a comprehensive database that covers violent deaths across both conflict and non-conflict settings.
“The boundaries between political, criminal, and interpersonal violence have become increasingly blurred, as revealed in cases of killings associated with drug trafficking in Central America or of pirates engaging in economically-motivated violence in Somalia”, said Keith Krause, one of the editors and authors of the report. ‘
“This research presets a wider view encompassing deaths from armed violence in all contexts, including crime and gang-related violence, including conflict, and including gender-related violence”, he said.
The report provides an integrated approach to understanding the global impact of lethal violence. As an inde¬pendent monitoring instrument, it supports the implementation of the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development in developing solid and evidence-based answers to the challenges of armed violence.
The Global Burden of Armed Violence calculates that the average annual violent death rate between 2004 and 2009 was 7,9 per 100.000 population. At least 58 countries exhibit violent death rates above 10,0 per 100.000, accounting for almost two-thirds of all violent deaths—or 285.000 individuals killed annually.
One-quarter occurs in 14 countries
One-quarter of all violent deaths occurs in just 14 countries with average annual violent death rates above 30,0 per 100.000, half of which are in the Americas. Although wars dominate media headlines, the levels of armed violence in some non-conflict countries resemble those of conflict zones. In an average year between 2004 and 2009, more people per capita were killed in El Salvador than in Iraq.
Lethal violence is unevenly distributed not only across countries, but also within them. In Mexico, the national violent death rate in 2009 stood at 18,4 per 100.000. In contrast, Ciudad Juarez in the northern part of the country experienced a rate of 170,4 per 100.000 in the same year—more than 20 times the global rate.
The Global Burden of Armed Violence also links lethal violence to underdevelopment.
“States with high levels of lethal violence almost always struggle to achieve the Millennium Development Goals,” said Keith Krause. “And we also know that when a country makes progress in terms of development, it is likely to exhibit decreasing levels of lethal violence.”
Published by Cambridge University Press, the “Global Burden of Armed Violence: Lethal Encounters” is a product of the Geneva Declaration Secretariat. The Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development, endorsed by more than 100 countries, calls upon states to achieve measurable reductions in the global burden of armed violence and tangible improvements in human security by 2015.
