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How many times have I written on violence against women? How many more times before I die will I have to keep on telling their stories? Why does it keep on happening in every part of the world? Will it ever recede?

Not likely. The latest UK statistics for England and Wales offer little hope. Almost 2 million women are assaulted, stalked, harassed, raped or killed (sometimes both) each year. The number of recorded offences has increased by 37 per cent in five years. The perpetrators are getting younger. These figures appear in the first ever national analysis carried out by National Police Chiefs Council, NPCC. They describe what is happening as a “national emergency”.

I have fought against sadistic misogyny since I was 13. My late, older brother used to slap and pinch me hard if I didn’t do as told. I still have marks on my arms. He believed that such chastisement would make me a good girl. It didn’t work, did it?

Until the millennium, reports of male brutality against females mainly focused on British Muslim, Sikh and Hindu communities. Females were “punished”, some killed, for refusing to marry men chosen by their families, for falling in love, for dressing “immodestly” and so on.

In the 80s, several young brides from India and Pakistan were murdered by their in-laws who wanted to get hold of the gold they had been given by their families. The usual way was to pour oil over the victims and set them alight, then claim it was a kitchen accident. I visited some of the victims in........

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