"A woman, a dog and a walnut tree, the harder you beat them the better they be…” goes an English saying, the roots of which reach back to the Ancient Greeks.

I don’t know about the tree and of course I would never beat a dog but the bit about the woman, thousands of years old though it is, still seems to resonate in the minds of witless morons throughout the world.

China, India, Africa, Europe and the Americas; all have maxims about the value of wife beating and all reflect men’s fear of women… and the fact that such archaic attitudes are deeply embedded in cultures almost everywhere.

To bring this closer to home, rights organisations calculate that four out of every 10 Kenyan women suffer from domestic violence — that’s 40 per cent of all women in the nation — and state that it is on the rise.

Domestic violence in Kenya has been given a searing topicality by two images that burnt themselves into our collective consciousness.

The first, some years ago although it remains as clear as yesterday, was the film of Betty Kavita howling on her hospital bed, her mind as well as body destroyed by a beating from the man supposed to love her.

The Daily Nation ran a campaign called End the Violence following this outrage to raise public awareness of the growing problem. It was well received and urgently needs reviving following last month’s brutal attack on a young woman called Jackline Mwende whose hands were chopped off with a machete, allegedly because she could not have children.

Neither of these events is given prominence in an exhibition about sexual and gender-based violence, at the main Nairobi National Museum until September 27.

That is because the exhibition, while highly relevant to Kenya, is predicated upon the issue globally rather than as a timely and specific response to local events — naturally enough, given that the violence goes on all the time, ticking away in the background, and therefore such a show becomes pertinent to most societies everywhere and at any time.

Depressing, isn’t it.

Reinforcing concerns, the exhibition, called One in Three: What does it take for you to be outraged? offers around 60 photographs, paintings and sculpture from all over the world brought to us courtesy of the World Bank Art Programme. The title comes from the statistic that worldwide one in three of all women will experience domestic violence at some time in their lives.

Fittingly, six of the 60 works are by Kenyan artists: Patrick Mukabi, Maggie Otieno and Mia Collis.

Mukabi shows one of his cut-out angels, made from iron sheeting taken from houses destroyed in the 2007 Post Election Violence. Powerful pieces from his Siasa Mbaya, Maisha Mbaya (Bad Politics, Bad Life) series, they show an angel armed with an assault rifle, referencing the avenging archangel St Michael who is traditionally shown wielding the sword with which he wounded Satan.

Maggie Otieno presents two wood and steel sculptures from her Silent Conversations group while the photographer Mia Collis pays tribute to the work of three notable Kenyan women with large full colour portraits — Theresa Njoroge, champion of women prisoners’ rights; Alberta Wambua, director of the Gender Violence Recovery Centre; and Catherine Wanjohi, the advocate for sex workers.

Oddly enough, the exhibition blurb states the works are by “emerging artists” —occasionally a euphemism for “not yet very good ones” — yet in fact most are highly accomplished and with well earned reputations.

For example, other excellent works include an installation, Doll 2011, by the Indian artist Debasish Dutta. Deeply moving with its base of accumulated drug capsules beneath a boxed wall of female dolls, it speaks against the practice of aborting girl foetuses by families who want only boys.

Then there is the Pakistani Nansheen Saeed’s sculpture Carrier. Her stuffed female figure is presented as a piece of luggage, with trolley wheels and a handle, to show girls perceived as burdens.

One of the most striking sculptures on display is Young Bride by Hem Matsi of Namibia that is simply a bloodied wedding dress, protesting against child marriage.

Prints include a group of eight silkscreens by the Estonian Marko Maetamm from his Bleeding House series. Blood pours from the windows, chimneys and doors of these houses; homes that should be sanctuaries but become scenes of violence.

Photographs of gagged and bound women abound, statistics are shown on hanging cards and a screen bears groups of drawings by children from the Gender Violence Recovery Centre.

Meanwhile, not only Jackline Mwende and all the other victims need our help. Kenya’s Protection Against Domestic Violence Act, signed into law last year, was a good move but the police, the courts and most of all ourselves, from whom all laws spring, must support an attitude of absolutely zero tolerance of domestic violence.

Women and children are not the only victims of course, with attacks sometimes explained away as arising from cultural traditions.

Rape is used as a weapon of war against men as well as women and girls, and gays, lesbians and transgender people are often targeted in intolerant societies.

There is domestic violence against men as well, but because they are often too ashamed to report it, the incidences seem small in comparison with the recorded violence against women.

We are all at risk. We must all fight against it. And if this significant exhibition achieves its aim of increasing awareness then it is at least a start.

Frank Whalley runs Lenga Juu, an arts consultancy based in Nairobi