Preventing And Responding To Gender Based Violence In Middle And Low Income Countries

Worldwide, patterns of violence against women differ markedly from violence against men. For example, women are more likely than men to be sexually assaulted or killed by someone they know. The United Nations has defined violence against women as "gender-based" violence, to acknowledge that such violence is rooted in gender inequality and is often tolerated and condoned by laws, institutions, and community norms. Violence against women is not only a profound violation of human rights, but also a costly impediment to a country's national development. While gender-based violence occurs in many forms throughout the life cycle, this review focuses on two of the most common types-physical intimate partner violence and sexual violence by any perpetrator. Unfortunately, the knowledge base about effective initiatives to prevent and respond to gender-based violence is relatively limited. Few approaches have been rigorously evaluated, even in high-income countries. And such evaluations involve numerous methodological challenges. Nonetheless, the authors review what is known about more and less effective-or at least promising-approaches to prevent and respond to gender-based violence. They present definitions, recent statistics, health consequences, costs, and risk factors of gender-based violence. The authors analyze good practice initiatives in the justice, health, and education sectors, as well as multisectoral approaches. For each of these sectors, they examine initiatives that have addressed laws and policies, institutional reforms, community mobilization, and individual behavior change strategies. Finally, the authors identify priorities for future research and action, including funding research on the health and socioeconomic costs of violence against women, encouraging science-based program evaluations, disseminating evaluation results across countries, promoting investment in effective prevention and treatment initiatives, and encouraging public-private partnerships.

Worldwide, patterns of violence against women differ markedly from violence against men. For example, women are more likely than men to be sexually assaulted or killed by someone they know. The United Nations has defined violence against women as "gender-based" violence, to acknowledge that such violence is rooted in gender inequality and is often tolerated and condoned by laws, institutions, and community norms. Violence against women is not only a profound violation of human rights, but also a costly impediment to a country's national development. While gender-based violence occurs in many forms throughout the life cycle, this review focuses on two of the most common types-physical intimate partner violence and sexual violence by any perpetrator. Unfortunately, the knowledge base about effective initiatives to prevent and respond to gender-based violence is relatively limited. Few approaches have been rigorously evaluated, even in high-income countries. And such evaluations involve numerous methodological challenges. Nonetheless, the authors review what is known about more and less effective-or at least promising-approaches to prevent and respond to gender-based violence. They present definitions, recent statistics, health consequences, costs, and risk factors of gender-based violence. The authors analyze good practice initiatives in the justice, health, and education sectors, as well as multisectoral approaches. For each of these sectors, they examine initiatives that have addressed laws and policies, institutional reforms, community mobilization, and individual behavior change strategies. Finally, the authors identify priorities for future research and action, including funding research on the health and socioeconomic costs of violence against women, encouraging science-based program evaluations, disseminating evaluation results across countries, promoting investment in effective prevention and treatment initiatives, and encouraging public-private partnerships.

A health-care provider is likely to be the first professional contact for survivors of intimate partner violence or sexual assault. Evidence suggests that women who have been subjected to violence seek health care more often than non-abused women, even if they do not disclose the associated violence. They also identify health-care providers as the professionals they would most trust with disclosure of abuse. These guidelines are an unprecedented effort to equip healthcare providers with evidence-based guidance as to how to respond to intimate partner violence and sexual violence against women. They also provide advice for policy makers, encouraging better coordination and funding of services, and greater attention to responding to sexual violence and partner violence within training programmes for health care providers. The guidelines are based on systematic reviews of the evidence, and cover: 1. identification and clinical care for intimate partner violence 2. clinical care for sexual assault 3. training relating to intimate partner violence and sexual assault against women 4. policy and programmatic approaches to delivering services 5. mandatory reporting of intimate partner violence. The guidelines aim to raise awareness of violence against women among health-care providers and policy-makers, so that they better understand the need for an appropriate health-sector response. They provide standards that can form the basis for national guidelines, and for integrating these issues into health-care provider education.

This book explores the widespread problem of gender-based violence in the Anglophone Caribbean, exploring reasons for its perpetuation and proposing viable policy and programming solutions to prevent it. Drawing on the work of a multidisciplinary team of Caribbean researchers and practitioners, the book explores the ways in which violence victimisation and perpetration have been socially and institutionally shaped, and supported by fixed gender codes. Key themes in the book include the institutional frameworks and structural inequalities that perpetuate gender-based violence, the role of the church both in perpetuating the problem and its potential to combat it, the role of law, access to justice, and governmental and non-governmental responses to gender-based violence. The book covers violence against women, but also explores women as perpetrators, men and boys as victims, and gender-based violence against young persons. It also demonstrates the ways in which gender-based violence can further marginalise already marginalised groups, such as members of the LBTQ+ community or persons with disabilities. Bridging the divide between academia, government, and civil society, this book challenges the normalisation of gender-based violence in the Anglophone Caribbean and proposes viable, culturally relevant solutions for prevention. It will be of interest to researchers and practitioners working on issues related to gender, the Caribbean, global development, criminology, and human rights.

This book brings together some of the most interesting and innovative work being done to tackle gender-based violence in various sectors, world regions, and socio-political contexts. It will be useful to development and humanitarian practitioners, policy makers, and academics, including gender specialists.

This book offers contemporary perspectives on the different forms of gender-based violence in Africa through a legal, cultural, and sociological lens.

The Bible and Gender-based Violence in Botswana foregrounds the rampancy of gender-based violence against women and girls in biblical texts and how it resonates with gender-based violence (GBV) in the author’s contemporary context of Botswana. The volume reads selected texts from the Bible alongside newspaper reports of GBV against women and girls in Botswana to show that while the Bible is taken as an authoritative text within the Botswana context, it is riddled with GBV against female persons. It asserts that by acknowledging and naming GBV in biblical texts and not concealing, ignoring, or spiritualizing it, contemporary communities of faith will be able to confront the problem in these contexts. By so doing, the book argues, the Bible will become a resource for positive transformation rather than a tool for supporting gender injustice. The book appeals to everyone willing to see positive change in regard to gender in/equality and is intended for a wide readership including researchers, postgraduates, church and other representatives of religious institutions, and upper-level undergraduates.

This book amplifies the different voices and experiences of those facing gender-based violence (GBV) in the Global South. It explores the localised ways in which marginalised individuals design modes of coping with and address GBV, including cultural interpretations, and artistic and faith-based expressions. The book examines GBV triggers, prevalence, and societal impacts while referring to community, national, and regional mobilisation to deal with the phenomenon in its various manifestations, including physical, psychological, political, domestic, and public violence. It explores issues related to women’s negotiations with the patriarchal underpinnings of GBV; the role of the law and history in the perpetuation of GBV; the complementary role of culture and faith to legal protection against GBV, and access to justice for women and girls. In doing so, the book exposes understandings and expressions of GBV, as well as methodologies and indigenous initiatives to prevent it through local viable solutions. The book thus challenges the normalisation of GBV in the Global South. Providing concrete and culturally relevant suggestions for challenging ingrained models of gender understandings of violence in the Global South, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of Development Studies, Gender Studies, Women’s Studies, Violence and Abuse Studies, Human Rights, Criminal Law, and Socio-Legal Studies.