Series L, Number 11, in Population Reports is a comprehensive overview highlighting the two most prevalent types of abuse in the lives of women and girls around the world: (1) abuse of females within marriage and other intimate relationships; and, (2) coerced sex, whether it occurs in childhood, adolescence, or adulthood. The report finds that around the world at least one woman in every three has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime. Most often the abuser is a member of her own family. The report provides extensive information and examples of how world-wide gender-based violence is a major public health concern and suggests strategies to respond to it. Its chapters are:
- The World Takes Notice -- discusses the scope of this report and evolving world awareness of gender-based violence including the 1993 United Nations General Assembly adopted "Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women".
- Intimate Partner Abuse -- includes the magnitude of, dynamics of, explanations of and women's responses to abuse.
- Sexual Coercion -- focuses on forced sex in marriage and in initiation rites, andsexual abuse in childhood.
- Impact on Reproductive Health -- focuses on sexual autonomy and unwanted pregnancies, and covers how violence can compromise HIV protection, lead to high-risk sexual behavior and high-risk pregnancies, and increase risks for other gynecological problems.
- Threats to Health and Development -- addresses violence as a risk factor for disease, discusses both the physical and mental health consequences of abuse, covers how domestic violence undermines children's well-being and how gender-based abuse hinders women's participation in public life and undermines the economic wellbeing of societies.
- Health Providers Play a Key Role -- looks at barriers to addressing gender-based violence and provides information on how to ask/screen about abuse, support women who disclose abuse, and the importance of health care programs activities extending beyond the clinic services to community health promotion activities and mass-media campaigns.
- An Agenda for Change -- describes strategies for empowering women and girls, raising the costs to abusers, providing for the needs of victims, coordinating institutional and individual responses, involving youth, reaching out to men, and changing community norms.
The report also provides:
- A popout guide of What Health Care Providers Can Do About Domestic Violence including how to ask, safety planning, etc.
- Four Figures: an Ecological Model of Factors; Pathways to Unwanted Pregnancy and Sexually Transmitted Infections; Health Outcomes; and, Partner Abuse and Child Health in Nicaragua
- Eight Tables: 1.Physical Assault on Women by an Intimate Male Partner, 2.Approval of Wife-Beating, 3.Help-Seeking by Physically Abused Women, 4.Variations in Men's Attitudes and Rates of Abuse, 5.Prevalence of Forced First Intercourse, 6.Prevalence of Child Sexual Abuse, 7.How Health Care Systems Can Respond, 8.Applying Communication Strategies to Address Violence
- Six Side-Bars: a timeline of ways world organizations spoke out in the 1990s; "A Framework for Understanding Partner Violence"; a discussion how culture can both aggravate women's vulnerability and serve as a creative source for intervention.; examples how a number of reproductive health programs in developing countries have taken the lead in addressing violence against women; some lessons learned globally in health systems and provision; and the "High-Priority First Steps" for donors, program planners and providers
- and, a Bibliography
The Ending Violence Against Women report was published by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and the Center for Health and Gender Equity(CHANGE). Population Reports, is a quarterly journal on family planning and related health topics produced by Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health's Population Information Program.
