CONTENTS
- The World Takes Notice
- Intimate Partner Abuse
- Sexual Coercion
- Impact on Reproductive Health
- Threats to Health and Development
- Health Providers Play a Key Role
- An Agenda for Change
HIGHLIGHTS
- What lies behind violence?
- Culture: a double-edged sword
- Child sexual abuse is widespread
- Violence harms women in many different ways
- *Pullout guide: What Health Providers Can Do
- Responding to violence: Lessons learned
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The Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) is a research and advocacy organization that seeks to integrate concern for gender equity and social justice into international health policy and practice. CHANGE staff can be reached by e-mail at change@genderhealth.org or at http://www.genderhealth.org.
December, 1999
Series L, Number 11
Issues in World Health
What Is Violence Against Women?
Any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivations of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life. (444)There is increasing consensus, as reflected in this declaration, that abuse of women and girls, regardless of where and how it occurs, is best understood within a “gender” framework because it stems in part from women's and girls' subordinate status in society.
Article 2 of the UN Declaration clarifies that the definition of violence against women should encompass, but not be limited to, acts of physical, sexual, and psychological violence in the family and the community. These acts include spousal battering, sexual abuse of female children, dowry-related violence, rape including marital rape, and traditional practices harmful to women, such as female genital mutilation (FGM). They also include nonspousal violence, sexual harassment and intimidation at work and in school, trafficking in women, forced prostitution, and violence perpetrated or condoned by the state, such as rape in war.
This issue of Population Reports focuses principally on two types of violence: (1) abuse of women within marriage and other intimate relationships and (2) coerced sex, whether it takes place in childhood, adolescence, or adulthood. This focus reflects the types of abuse most dominant in the lives of women and girls around the world.
Other forms of abuse—such as trafficking in women, rape during war, female infanticide, and FGM—are also important. They are not included in this report, however, because they deserve separate consideration (see, for example, Population Reports, Female Genital Mutilation: Reproductive Health Concern, Supplement to Series J, No. 41, October 1995). Limiting the focus of the report to intimate partner violence and sexual coercion makes it possible to discuss these issues and appropriate program responses in more depth.
Violence against women is different from interpersonal violence in general. The nature and patterns of violence against men, for example, typically differ from those against women. Men are more likely than women to be victimized by a stranger or casual acquaintance. Women are more likely than men to be victimized by a family member or intimate partner (55, 96, 212, 258, 436). The fact that women are often emotionally involved with and financially dependent upon those who abuse them has profound implications for how women experience violence and how best to intervene.
