Violence against women is not only the most widespread example of a human rights violation, but probably the least evident, going largely unpunished. This is shown by the reports published and research conducted by the United Nations, international human rights agencies and the global women's and feminist movements which have been denouncing this situation for decades.

It takes many forms, from domestic abuse to rape, sexual abuse and harmful cultural practices ranging from genital mutilation and honour crimes to premature marriage. In the context of wars in which most of the refugees and displaced population are women and children, women are raped, kidnapped, mutilated and used as sex slaves; the systematic rape of women and girls has been used as a weapon in numerous armed conflicts.

Between the end of 2006 and the beginning of 2007, I documented the selective murder of women, known as "femicide", in Guatemala. These murders are not just serious for the high number (from 2000 to 2007 more than 3600 women were killed), but for the grade of violence and brutality that the women suffer, being violated, hit, tortured, murdered and quartered.

At the end of 2008, I travelled to East Congo to document the sexual violence against women used as a “weapon of war' in the region, where thousands of women have been and continue being raped with total impunity by all the parts involved in the conflict. To figure the drama, in the South Kivu County alone between 2005 and 2007 14.200 women and girls were raped.

The grant will help me to travel to India to document the effects of the selective abortion of feminine fetuses and the death of women because of complications during abortions carried out in poor hygienic conditions and complications during the pregnancy and giving birth.

The practice of sex-selective abortion is the result of cultural norms that value male children over female children. According to a report of UNICEF, it causes the non-birth of almost 7.000 girls per day in India. The Lancet magazine estimates that in the last 20 years 10 million feminine fetuses have been eliminated in the country.

Likewise, the numbers of pregnant women that die each year in India from preventable causes are close to 80.000.

I will use the grant to travel to the northern districts of Punjab and Haryana, where fewer than 800 girls are born to every 1000 boys. Northern Punjab is one of the worst, with just 798 girls for every 1,000 boys under the age of six.

The project aims at contemplating violence against women as a historic and worldwide phenomenon and my goal is to create awareness about this violence and its consequences into the life of tens of thousands of women and girls.