One woman in three in the world is affected by domestic violence, US movie actress Reese Witherspoon said here Thursday as she promoted a worldwide campaign against abuse of women.
"There isn't a woman in the world that doesn't have a friend or a partner who's actually experiencing some sort of violence against them, so I think although domestic violence hasn't happened to me personally, I certainly know women who are dealing with this struggle every day," she told a media conference in Sao Paulo.
Witherspoon, the 32-year-old star of the "Legally Blonde" films and an Oscar winner for her role in "Walk the Line," is the global ambassador of "Speak Out Against Domestic Violence," a joint campaign launched in 2004 by the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the Avon cosmetics company.
She was in Brazil to highlight the campaign's aims in Latin America, including the sale of bracelets which is financing the charity.
In a symbolic gesture, she gave one of the bracelets to Maria da Penha Maia Fernandes, a Brazilian woman who has come to represent domestic violence in her home country after she was left a paraplegic by her violent husband.
After a 20-year legal battle, Brazil in 2006 named a law after Maia Fernandes that recognizes domestic violence against women as a human rights violation, and extends a number of preventive and punitive measures as well as assistance.
According to UNIFEM, one Brazilian woman in five suffers violence at the hands of a man, and there were an estimated 2.1 million women in the country who each year are victims of domestic violence.
Domestic violence, Witherspoon said, "affects women who are famous, who are not famous, women who have money, women who have no money. This is an issue that crosses all boundaries and it certainly affects everyone."
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