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
Sexual coercion exists along a continuum, from forcible rape to nonphysical forms of pressure that compel girls and women to engage in sex against their will. The touchstone of coercion is that a woman lacks choice and faces severe physical or social consequences if she resists sexual advances.
Some forms of coercion—such as forced penetration (rape), sexual assault (forced sexual contact), and sexual molestation of children—are recognized as crimes by many legal systems. Other forms—such as intimidation, verbal pressure, or forced marriage—are culturally tolerated and at times even condoned (211, 390). Still others involve collusion by organized crime or the military, such as trafficking in women and children, and rape in war.
Most nonconsensual sex takes place among people who know each other—spouses, family members, courtship partners, or acquaintances (211, 479). Sexual coercion can take place at any point in a woman's life. Children as young as several months old have been raped or otherwise sexually molested. Even in old age women are not immune: Rape crisis centers report victims in their seventies and older (211).
Much sexual coercion takes place against children or adolescents in both industrial and developing countries. Between one-third and two-thirds of known sexual assault victims are age 15 or younger, according to information from justice systems and rape crisis centers in Chile, Peru, Malaysia, Mexico, Panama, Papua New Guinea, and the US (212). During childhood young girls can become easy targets for older male relatives or friends who obtain sex through force or deception. Later, boyfriends, teachers, relatives, or other men in authority may force young women into unwanted sexual encounters.
 Women, Law and Development Centre Nigeria |
| As this poster from Nigeria illustrates, violence against women takes many forms. Often, social and cultural norms condone gender-based violence. |
