thesis about vawc

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

Assesment on VAWC RA 9262

research paper draft

Related Papers

Carlo Recaña

Kevin Waldie

Muzammil Hussain S

Roberto Peccei

This summary is organized in four parts. In the first part results in the electroweak theory are discussed, including precision tests of the Standard Model. The second part deals with recent results in QCD, focusing on areas where meaningful comparisons between theory and experiment are possible. The third part summarizes some of the salient technical progress in studying two-loop radiative effects in a variety of contexts, as well as progress made in calculating radiative corrections in the LEP 200 region. Finally, in the fourth part, a discussion of the effects of radiative corrections, both as a result of new physics and in new energy regimes, is presented focusing on their future experimental implications.

Raymund Moderes

A critique on the law specifically Section 28 which deals with the requisites prior to the demolition of informal settlements

ranjit panicker

SHANNON GROH

IRJET Journal

Aaron S Hamilton

Final maritime archaeological survey report of the World War II German (DKM) Type VIIC U-boat U-1105 "Black Panther" in the Potomac River, Maryland. The survey was conducted over two year (2021-2022) by the Battle of the Atlantic Research and Expedition Group (BAREG) 501(c)3 with a grant funded by the Maryland Historical Trust. The U-1105 ‘Black Panther’ is a one-of-a-kind example of evolutionary submarine technology not located anywhere else in the world. Its uniqueness cannot be overstated. While a German U-boat, its representative technologies identified below, were universally reverse engineered and adopted by navies around the world in the aftermath of World War II. In addition, it represents an early example of the Cold War conflict given that the only documented reason the U.S. Navy took possession of this submarine was to keep it out of the hands of Soviet naval authorities. U-1105 was the only German U-boat equipped with examples of four advanced submarine technologies that conducted an operational wartime patrol during the last year of the Battle of the Atlantic known in the Kriegsmarine as “Total Undersea War.” They were a Schnorchel, acoustic camouflage known as 'Alberich', an advanced sonar array known as the GHG Balkon, and a flash transmission system known as Kurier, which was unreadable by Allied intelligence. These engineering innovations evolved submarine technology and undersea warfare well into the postwar world. While all four are detailed below, only two are viewable on the site.

Toribudi Santoso

RELATED PAPERS

IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology

Robert Rowlingson

SciDoc Publishers

International Journal of Dentistry and Oral Science (IJDOS)

Jornal vascular brasileiro

Guilherme Carlesso

Arquivos Brasileiros de Endocrinologia & Metabologia

Anwar Jammah

Ali Eichenberger

zafer yükseler

Tendencias en la Investigación Universitaria. Una visión desde Latinoamérica. Volumen VII

Arney Vega Martínez

Revista Brasileira de Entomologia

Maria Virginia Urso-Guimarães

Journal of Applied Logic

António Valente

Bioorganic Chemistry

Salar Hafez-ghoran

Advances in Zoology and Botany

POONAM DEVI

Epidemiologia e Serviços de Saúde

Ana Nilce Elkhoury

Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery

Tanja Anguseva

Revista da Escola de Enfermagem da USP

José Siles González

Biocatalysis and Agricultural Biotechnology

Alok Mukerjee

Materials Science. Textile and Clothing Technology

Juris Blums

Agents and Actions

Gabriele Morazzoni

Studies in Computational Intelligence

Operators and Matrices

Sergey Zagorodnyuk

Jurnal Gizi dan Pangan

ikeu tanziha

sang kuy han

International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing

Florian Kohlbacher

Brazilian Journal of Health Review

Flávio Daniel Saavedra Tomasich

Nemanja Milčić

Daniel Leonardo Rincón Mayorga

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

• The Publisher

Conferences

International Review of Social Sciences Research

ISSN 2782-9227 (Print) 2782-9235 (Online)

Violence against Women and their Children Incident Report: Data Exploration for VAWC Awareness

Francis f. balahadia, zerah jane m. astoveza & gelzen r. jamolin, volume 2 issue 1, march 2022.

• Aims and Scope
• Editorial Board
• Awarded Authors
• Awarded Reviewers
• Guidelines for Authors
• Business Model
• Article Processing Charges
• Guidelines for Reviewers
• Post-publication Guidelines
• Current Issue
• Online-first Articles

This study analyzed the cases on the Violence against Women and their Children (VAWC) in the province of Laguna to determine the level of law awareness, reasons for unreported violence incidents and preferences on reporting VAWC cases. To assess the collected responses, descriptive statistics and Kruskal Wallis were utilized.  Convenience sampling was used with 356 respondents, 34 of whom were witnesses to the abuse and 65 are the victims of abuse. Majority of witnesses to the abuse were women between 16 and 20 years old while the victims were between 16 and 30 years old. Emotional abuse is the most common type witnessed regardless of age, location, civil status, occupation, or educational attainment. While physical abuse is the most common type experienced by the victims, it is frequently perpetrated by their former husbands. Ironically, respondents were “Very Aware” of the VAWC law but the 70.5% of them do not report cases due to embarrassment, fear of being blamed, inability to make own decision, and fear of societal judgment. Majority of respondents believe a mobile application and website could help report the abuses.

Keywords: violence against women, awareness, unreported violence, law, abuse

Anderson, Björn, et. al., (2020). Together we can end violence against children and violence against women in East Asia and the Pacific . Joint Statement by UN Women, UNICEF and UNFPA. https://www.unicef.org/eap/press-releases/together-we-can-end-violence-against-children-and-violence-against-women-east-asia

Cudis, Cristine (2021). 20% of Pinoy Cite violence vs. women as top concern amid pandemic . Philippine News Agency. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1133079

Garcia, Tria Marie (2020). Violence against women in the Philippines. Master’s Thesis 2020: Norwegian University of Life Sciences.

Guedes, A., Bott, S., Garcia-Moreno, C., & Colombini, M. (2016). Bridging the gaps: a global review of intersections of violence against women and violence against children.  Global health action ,  9 (1), 31516

Legarda, Loren (2016). Legarda: Ending Violence Against Women, A Cause for All. Available at https://lorenlegarda.com.ph/legarda-ending-violence-against-women-a-cause-for-all/

Lobusta, M., Molod, C. & Santos, A. S. (2014) . R.A. 9262: Anti-violence against Women and Children Law: an Assessment https://www.academia.edu/ .

Najarila, Mary Jane O. (2018). VAWC Law Through the Lenses of the Community Elders and Leaders of Ifugao, Benguet and Mountain Province. Journal of Asian Review of Public Affairs and Policy . Volume 3, No. 3.

National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women. Republic Act 9262. The Anti-violence against Women and their Children Act of 2004: A Briefer.  http://scouts.org.ph/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/ra_9262.pdf

Oxfam International (2021). Say ‘Enough’ to violence against women and girls.  https://www.oxfam.org/en/take-action/campaigns/say-enough-violence-against-women-and-girls

Partlow, Mary Judaline (2020). Women’s group files 109 VAWC cases in NegOr in 2019. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1095766

Philippine Commission on Women (2019). Beijing Declaration and Platform for action BPfA+25: Philippine Progress Report 2014-2019. https://asiapacificgender.org/ .

Philippines National Demographic and Health Survey (2018). Philippine Statistics Authority. Quezon City Philippines. https://dhsprogram.com/

Philippine Statistics Authority (2019). Special Release: Violence Against Women: Results of 2017 National Demographic and Health Survey. http://rsso06.psa.gov.ph/

Philippine Statistics Authority (n.d.) Infographics by Gender. Available at: https://psa.gov.ph/infographics/subject-area/Gender

Philippine Commission on Women (n.d.) Violence Against Women. Available at:  https://pcw.gov.ph/violence-against-women/

Preventing Violence Against Women and Children: Workshop Summary. Forum on Global Violence Prevention; Board on Global Health; Institute of Medicine.2011. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ .

Ranada, Pia (2020). During Corona Virus Lockdown: Abuse women Children more vulnerable. https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/in-depth/during-coronavirus-lockdown-abused-women-children-more-vulnerable .

Sambisa, W., Angeles, G., Lance, P. M., Naved, R. T., & Thornton, J. (2011). Prevalence and Correlates of Physical Spousal Violence Against Women in Slum and Nonslum Areas of Urban Bangladesh.  Journal of Interpersonal Violence ,  26 (13), 2592–2618. 10.1177/0886260510388282

San Juan, R.A. Garcia, D.A. & Escleto, M. (2020). Level of Awareness on Anti-Violence Against Women And Their Children Act (Republic Act 9262) Among Male Residents of Tanay, Rizal, Calendar Year 2017. The URSP Research Journal . Volume 6, No. 1. http://www.urs.edu.ph/wp-content/uploads/publications/the-ursp-research-journal/current-issue/2-San-Juan.pdf

Santiago, Cecilia. & Aya, Esperanza (2014).  Awareness and Perception of Housewives in Selected Municipalities of Palawan Regarding R.A. 9262 (Anti-Violence against Women and their Children Act of 2004). Asia Pacific Journal of Multidisciplinary Research , Volume 2, Number 5, pp. 64-72(9).

Sarkar M. (2010). A study on domestic violence against adult and adolescent females in a rural area of west bengal.  Indian journal of community medicine: official publication of Indian Association of Preventive & Social Medicine ,  35 (2), 311–315. https://doi.org/10.4103/0970-0218.66881

The Global Gender Gap Report (2018). World Economic Forum. http://www3.weforum.org/

UNICEF East Asia and the Pacific Regional Office (2020). Ending Violence Against Women and Girls in the Philippines. https://www.unicef.org/

United Nation Population Fund (2010) . The Role of Data in Addressing Violence against Women and Girls. https://www.unfpa.org/

UN (2020). The Shadow Pandemic. https://www.un.org/en/observances/ending-violence-against-women-day

UN Philippines (2020). Violence against women and girls: A pandemic we must end now . https://philippines.un.org/en/105122-violence-against-women-and-girls-pandemic-we-must-end-now

Valeza, Maria-Noel (2020). Addressing the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Violence Against Women and Girls. https://www.un.org/en/addressing-impact-covid-19-pandemic-violence-against-women-and-girls

WHO and LSHTM (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine). Preventing intimate partner and sexual violence against women: Taking action and generating evidence. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization; 2010

World Health Organization (2021). Violence against women. https://www.who.int/health-topics/violence-against-women#tab=tab_1

World Health Organization (2021). Violence against women prevalence estimates, 208: global, regional and national prevalence estimates for intimate partner violence against women and global and regional prevalence estimates for non-partner sexual violence against women. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2021.  https://www.who.int/

Cite this article:

Balahadia, F.F., Astoveza, Z.M. & Jamolin, G.R. (2022). Violence against Women and their Children Incident Report: Data Exploration for VAWC Awareness. International Review of Social Sciences Research, Volume 2 Issue 1, pp. 98 - 119. DOI: https://doi.org/10.53378/352881

Small Research Grant

Book Project

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it's official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you're on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings
• Browse Titles

NCBI Bookshelf. A service of the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.

Forum on Global Violence Prevention; Board on Global Health; Institute of Medicine. Preventing Violence Against Women and Children: Workshop Summary. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2011 Sep 12.

Preventing Violence Against Women and Children: Workshop Summary.

• Hardcopy Version at National Academies Press

1 Introduction

Violence against women and children is a serious public health concern, with costs at multiple levels of society. Although violence is a threat to everyone, women and children are particularly susceptible to victimization because they often have fewer rights or lack appropriate means of protection. In some societies certain types of violence are deemed socially or legally acceptable, thereby contributing further to the risk to women and children.

In the past decade research has documented the growing magnitude of such violence, but gaps in the data still remain. Victims of violence of any type fear stigmatization or societal condemnation and thus often hesitate to report crimes. The issue is compounded by the fact that for women and children the perpetrators are often people they know and because some countries lack laws or regulations protecting victims. Some of the data that have been collected suggest that rates of violence against women range from 15 to 71 percent in some countries and that rates of violence against children top 80 percent ( García-Moreno et al., 2005 ; Pinheiro, 2006) . These data demonstrate that violence poses a high burden on global health and that violence against women and children is common and universal.

On January 27-28, 2011, the Institute of Medicine's Forum on Global Violence Prevention convened its first workshop to explore the prevention of violence against women and children. Part of the forum's mandate is to engage in multisectoral, multidirectional dialogue that explores crosscutting approaches to violence prevention. To that end, the workshop was designed to examine these approaches from multiple perspectives and at multiple levels of society. In particular, the workshop was focused on exploring the successes and challenges presented by evidence-based preventive interventions and examining the possibilities of scaling up or translating such work in other settings. Speakers were invited to share the progress and outcomes of their work and to engage in dialogue exploring gaps and opportunities in the field.

The workshop was planned by a formally appointed committee of the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the members of which created an agenda and identified relevant speakers. Because the topic is large and the field is broad, presentations at this event represent only a sample of the research currently being undertaken. Speakers were chosen to present a global, balanced perspective, but by no means a comprehensive one. The agenda for this workshop can be found in Appendix A .

• ORGANIZATION OF THE REPORT

This summary provides a factual account of the presentations given at the workshop. Opinions expressed within this summary are not those of the Institute of Medicine, the forum, or its agents, but rather of the presenters themselves. Statements are the views of the speakers and do not reflect conclusions or recommendations of a formally appointed committee. This summary was authored by a designated rapporteur based on the workshop presentations and discussions and does not represent the views of the institution, nor does it constitute a full or exhaustive overview of the field.

The workshop summary is organized thematically, covering the major topics that arose during the two-day workshop, so as to provide a larger context for these issues in a more compelling and comprehensive way. As well, the thematic organization allows the summary to serve as an overview resource of important issues in the field. The themes were chosen as the most frequent, cross-cutting, and essential elements that arose from the workshop, but do not represent the views of the IOM or a formal consensus process.

The summary begins with a brief introduction of the issue, followed by two parts and an appendix. The first part consists of four chapters that provide the summary of the workshop; the second part of the report consists of submitted papers and commentary from speakers regarding the substance of the work they presented at the workshop. These papers were solicited from speakers to provide further information of their work. The appendix contains additional information regarding the agenda and participants.

• DEFINITIONS AND CONTEXT

Violence is defined by the World Health Organization as “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation” ( WHO, 2002) . When directed against women or children, this violence can take a number of forms, including, but not limited to, sexual violence, intimate partner violence, child abuse and neglect, bullying, teen dating violence, trafficking, and elder abuse. The majority of violence against women and children is perpetrated by partners, family members, friends, or acquaintances, so that most violence against women and children takes place in the form of intimate partner violence, family violence, or school violence ( WHO and LSHTM, 2010 ).

These three types of violence, which are interconnected, are commonly referred to as being part of a “cycle of violence,” in which victims become perpetrators. The workshop's scope was narrowed to focus on these elements of the cycle as they relate to interrupting this transmission of violence. Intervention strategies include preventing violence before it starts as well as preventing recurrence, preventing adverse effects (such as trauma or the consequences of trauma), and preventing the spread of violence to the next generation or social level. Successful strategies consider the context of the violence, such as family, school, community, national, or regional settings, in order to determine the best programs. Thus, the workshop operated in a multidimensional framework that integrated ecologic, public health, and trauma-informed paradigms to explore a comprehensive approach to violence prevention.

The next four chapters examine the four major themes that arose from participants' presentations and discussions: advancing research on co-occurrence of child maltreatment and intimate partner violence ( Chapter 2 ), paradigm shifts and changing social norms ( Chapter 3 ), the state of prevention research in low- and middle-income countries ( Chapter 4 ), and prevention among multiple sectors ( Chapter 5 ). The three chapters in Part 2 include the submitted papers, organized as (1) overviews of evidence, (2) global partnerships and government initiatives, and (3) examples of preventive interventions.

And finally the appendixes consist of the agenda (A), the speakers' biographies (B), the planning committee members' biographies (C), and the Forum on Global Violence Prevention members' biographies (D).

• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Forum on Global Violence Prevention was established to address a need to develop multisectoral collaboration amongst stakeholders. Violence prevention is a cross-disciplinary field, which could benefit from increased dialogue between researchers, policy makers, funders, and practitioners. The forum members chose the issue of violence against women and children as the forum's first workshop theme because there is a pressing need to coordinate and collate the information in this area. As awareness of the insidious and pervasive nature of these types of violence grows, so too does the imperative to mitigate and prevent.

A number of individuals contributed to the successful development of this workshop and report. These include a number of Institute of Medicine staff: Tessa Burke, Marton Cavani, Rosemary Chalk, Kristen Danforth, Meg Ginivan, Wendy Keenan, Patrick Kelley, Angela Mensah, Elena Nightingale, Kenisha Peters, Lauren Tobias, Julie Wiltshire, and Jordan Wyndelts. The forum staff, including Deepali Patel, Rachel Pittluck, and Rachel Taylor, also put forth considerable effort to ensure this workshop's success. The staff at the Kaiser Family Foundation's Barbara Jordan Conference Center and Mind & Media provided excellent support for the live event and its webcast.

The planning committee contributed several hours of service to develop and execute the agenda, with the guidance of the forum membership. Reviewers also provided thoughtful remarks in the reading of the draft manuscript.

These efforts would not be possible without the work of the forum membership itself, an esteemed body of individuals dedicated to the concept that violence is preventable. Their names and biographies can be found in Appendix D .

And finally, the overall successful functioning of the forum and its activities rests on the foundation of its sponsorship. Financial support for the Forum on Global Violence Prevention is provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Administration on Aging, Office of Women's Health; Anheuser-Busch InBev; Avon Foundation for Women; BD (Becton Dickinson, and Company); Catholic Health Initiatives; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Department of Education: Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools; Department of Justice: National Institute of Justice; Fetzer Foundation; F. Felix Foundation; Foundation to Promote Open Society; Kaiser Permanente; National Institutes of Health: National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Office of Research on Women's Health, John E. Fogarty International Center; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

• García-Moreno C, Watts C, Ellsberg M, Heise L, Jansen HAFM. WHO Multi-country Study on Women's Health and Domestic Violence against Women. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization; 2005.
• Pinheiro PS. Report of the independent expert for the United Nations study on violence against children. New York: United Nations; 2006.
• WHO (World Health Organization). World report on violence and health. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization; 2002.
• WHO and LSHTM (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine). Preventing intimate partner and sexual violence against women: Taking action and generating evidence. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization; 2010. [ PubMed : 20921563 ]
• Cite this Page Forum on Global Violence Prevention; Board on Global Health; Institute of Medicine. Preventing Violence Against Women and Children: Workshop Summary. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2011 Sep 12. 1, Introduction.
• PDF version of this title (2.1M)

In this Page

Other titles in this collection.

• The National Academies Collection: Reports funded by National Institutes of Health

Related information

• PubMed Links to PubMed

Recent Activity

• Introduction - Preventing Violence Against Women and Children Introduction - Preventing Violence Against Women and Children

Your browsing activity is empty.

Activity recording is turned off.

Turn recording back on

Connect with NLM

National Library of Medicine 8600 Rockville Pike Bethesda, MD 20894

Web Policies FOIA HHS Vulnerability Disclosure

Help Accessibility Careers

It is time for action to end violence against women: a speech by Lakshmi Puri at the ACP-EU Parliamentary Assembly

Date: Wednesday, 19 June 2013

Speech by Acting Head of UN Women Lakshmi Puri on Ending Violence against Women and Children at the ACP-EU Parliamentary Assembly on 18 June 2013, in Brussels

Good morning.

Honourable Co-Presidents of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly Ms. Joyce Laboso (congratulations on this new important role) and Mr. Louis Michel, Honourable Members of Parliament, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I thank you for inviting me to address you at this ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly on a matter that concerns all of us, all 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific nations and 27 European Union Member States represented in this forum, and ALL nations of the world.

It is one of the most pervasive violations of human rights in the world, one of the least prosecuted crimes, and one of the greatest threats to lasting peace and development.

I am talking about violence against women and children. I am honoured to be here, at your request, to address this urgent matter as you join together to advance human rights, democracy and the common values of humanity.

We all know that we have to do much more to respond to the cries for justice of women and children who have suffered violence. We have to do much more to end these horrible abuses and the impunity that allows these human rights violations to continue.

When we started UN Women two-and-a-half years ago, we made ending violence against women and girls one of our top priorities.

I think we can all agree that the time for complacency is long gone, has passed and belongs to another era. The silence on violence against women and children has been broken and now. Now is the time for stronger action.

It is time for action when up to 70 per cent of women in some countries face physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime.

When one in three girls in developing countries is likely to be married as a child bride; when some 140 million girls and women have suffered female genital mutilation; when millions of women and girls are trafficked in modern-day slavery; and when women’s bodies are a battleground and rape is used as a tactic of war – it is time for action.

This violence against women and children has tremendous costs to communities, nations and societies—for public well-being, health and safety, and for school achievement, productivity, law enforcement, and public programmes and budgets.

If left unaddressed, these human rights violations pose serious consequences for current and future generations and for efforts to ensure peace and security, to reduce poverty and to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and the next generation of development goals we are discussing .

The effects of violence can remain with women and children for a lifetime, and can pass from one generation to another. Studies show that children who have witnessed, or been subjected to, violence are more likely to become victims or abusers themselves.

Violence against women and girls is an extreme manifestation of gender inequality and systemic gender-based discrimination. The right of women and children to live free of violence depends on the protection of their human rights and a strong chain of justice.

Countries that enact and enforce laws on violence against women have less gender-based violence. Today 160 countries have laws to address violence against women. However, in too many cases enforcement is lacking.

For an effective response to this violence, different sectors in society must work together.

A rape survivor must have rapid access to a health clinic that can administer emergency medical care, including treatment to prevent HIV and unintended pregnancies and counseling.

A woman who is beaten by her husband must have someplace to go with her children to enjoy safety, sanity and shelter.

A victim of violence must have confidence that when she files a police report, she will receive justice and the perpetrator will be punished.

And an adolescent boy in school who learns about health and sexuality must be taught that coercion, violence and discrimination against girls are unacceptable.

As the Acting Head of UN Women, I have the opportunity to meet with representatives from around the world, with government officials, civil society groups and members of the business community.

I can tell you that momentum is gathering, awareness is rising and I truly believe that long-standing indifference to violence against women and children is declining.

A recent study published in the American Sociological Review finds that transformation in attitudes are happening around the world.

The study looked at women’s attitudes about intimate partner violence in 26 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. It found that during the first decade of the 2000s, in almost every one of these countries, women became more likely to reject intimate partner violence.

The surveys found growing female rejection of domestic violence in 23 of the 26 countries. It found that “women with greater access to global cultural scripts through urban living, education, or access to media were more likely to reject intimate partner violence.”

The study’s author concludes that domestic violence is increasingly viewed as unacceptable due to changes in global attitudes. Yet even with this rising rejection, in nearly half of the countries, 12 of the 26 – more than half of women surveyed – still believe that domestic violence is justified. So even though attitudes are changing, we still have a long way to go to achieve the changes in attitudes that are necessary to end violence against women and children.

I witnessed this myself at the 57th Commission on the Status of Women at United Nations Headquarters in New York this past March. The agreement reached at the Commission on preventing and ending violence against women and girls was hard-won and tensions ran high throughout the final week of the session.

There were many times when it was unclear whether the Commission would end in deadlock, as it did 10 years before on the same theme, or if Member States were going to decide on a groundbreaking agreement.

In the end, thanks to the tireless work of civil society advocates and negotiations into the wee hours of Government delegates and UN Women colleagues, agreement was reached on a historic document that embraces the call of women around the world to break the cycle of violence and to protect the rights of women and girls.

The landmark agreement provides an action plan for Governments. It breaks this down into the four P’s: Protection of human rights, Prosecution of offenders, Prevention of violence, and Provision of Services to survivors.

Protecting human rights

When it comes to protecting rights, Governments are called on to review national legislation, practices and customs and abolish those that discriminate against women. Laws, policies and programmes that explicitly prohibit and punish violence must be put into place, in line with international agreements, and you as Members of Parliament can play a key role.

Based on findings from UN Women’s 2011-2012 Progress of the World’s Women report «In Pursuit of Justice », out of all the ACP countries, 37 have legislation against domestic violence, 34 have legislation against sexual harassment, and just nine have legislation against marital rape.

Providing services When it comes to providing services, the agreement calls for strong action to improve the quality and accessibility of services so that women have prompt access to services regardless of their location, race, age or income.

These include: health-care services including post-rape care, emergency contraception and abortion where legal; immediate and effective police responses, psychological support and counselling; legal advice and protection orders; shelter, telephone hotlines, and social assistance.

Responses must be timely and efficient to end a culture of hopelessness and impunity and foster a culture of justice and support. In almost all of the ACP countries comprehensive multisectoral services need to be put in place and made accessible to all.

Prosecuting offenders

When it comes to the prosecution of offenders, we know that ending impunity means that laws must be enforced.

Women must have access to the police to file a criminal report and receive legal advice and protection orders. The response to violence must be immediate, coordinated and effective so that crimes are punished and justice is secured. This is true for times of peace and conflict. There can be no lasting peace when women suffer sexual violence.

Courts and the justice system must be accessible and responsive to criminal and civil matters relating to violence against women. Women must be informed of their legal rights and supported to navigate the legal system.

And for this, we need more women police officers, prosecutors and judges, because we know that women serving on the frontlines of justice strengthen justice for women and children.

Preventing violence against women

When it comes to preventing violence, we must address the root causes of gender inequality and discrimination.

Evidence shows that where the “gender gap” is greater—in the status of women’s health, participation in the economy, education levels, and representation in politics— women are more likely to be subjected to violence. Especially important is economic empowerment as a prevention strategy

This means that we need to take a long-term, systemic and comprehensive approach that recognizes and protects women’s and children’s full and equal human rights.

We must promote a culture of equality between men and women through institutional and legal reform, education, awareness-raising and the full engagement of men and boys.

Honourable MPs,

Ending violence against women is one of UN Women’s key priorities and a critical part of UN Women’s mission to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Having said that, I would like to take this opportunity to tell you about UN Women’s role in ending violence against women and some of our achievements.

A top priority right now is working with countries to implement the recent agreement from the Commission on the Status of Women.

I am very pleased that UN Women and the EU have agreed to work on this together. We hope, with your support, to collaborate with more regional and cross-regional bodies and groupings such as the African Union, the Latin American and Caribbean States and the Pacific Forum to follow up on the agreement from the Commission on the Status of Women to end violence against women and girls.

Today UN Women is working in 85 countries, including in many ACP countries, to prevent violence in the first place, to end impunity for these crimes, to increase access to justice and to expand essential services to survivors.

Through our global, regional and national programmes, we support the development of laws, national action plans and policies, and training programmes. We provide funding to NGOs and civil society, contribute to advocacy and awareness-raising efforts, and support local initiatives.

We work together with UNICEF and UN Habitat on the Safe Cities programme to promote the safety of women and girls in public spaces. We now work in over 20 cities around the world, and this number continues to rise. Let me share with you a few exciting examples.

In Kigali, Rwanda, a Safe City Campaign was launched by the mayor’s office and other partners. The city is advocating for reforms to an existing law on gender-based violence to include measures on sexual harassment and violence in public spaces.

In Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, bylaws on local markets now include articles which address women’s safety. Women vendors are returning to the markets following the first phase of physical and social infrastructure improvements, and a focused awareness campaign is underway on sexual harassment and sexual violence.

UN Women also administers the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women. This is a leading global fund exclusively dedicated to addressing violence against women and girls. To date, the UN Trust Fund has delivered more than USD 86 million to 351 initiatives in 128 countries and territories, often directly to women’s organizations. The results have demonstrated many good practices that can, and should be, expanded.

Another global programme administered by UN Women is the Secretary-General’s UNiTE Campaign to End Violence against Women. Through strong advocacy, the campaign is mobilizing communities across the globe.

In Africa, the UNiTE Campaign organized the Kilimanjaro Climb hosted by Tanzania under the auspices of the President. This raised awareness of violence against women to the highest levels resulting in strengthened national commitments throughout Africa.

In the Pacific Region, the campaign succeeded in securing the “Pacific Members of Parliament UNiTE statement” – the first of its kind in the region, tabled at the Pacific Island Forum Leaders meeting in the Cook Islands.

In the Caribbean, 15 high-profile local artists produced a series of creative materials as part of the “Caribbean Artists, united to end violence against women” initiative, developed in the framework of the UNiTE Campaign. These materials were officially presented by the Secretary-General of CARICOM, Irwin LaRocque, last year during the gathering of CARICOM Heads of Government. This has contributed to give high visibility and strategically position the issue of violence against women in the region.

And UN Women’s COMMIT initiative has garnered new commitments by 58 Governments to prevent and end violence against women and girls. I applaud the ACP and EU member countries, and the European Union itself, for making commitments and encourage other countries to join them.

We must work together to seize the moment and move quickly so that the momentum is not lost. UN Women stands ready to assist Member States with other UN partners. We have already identified the key priorities and strategies we will be focusing:

First, Getting the Evidence: Data on Violence against Women Despite some progress in this area, there is still an urgent need to strengthen the evidence base as many countries still lack reliable and meaningful data. Actually, earlier this morning the European Women’s Lobby Centre on Violence against Women presented the findings from the 2013 Barometer focusing on rape in the EU.

In cooperation with our UN partners, we plan to build capacity in regions and countries to increase skills in data collection, analysis, dissemination and use, using the UN Statistical Commission Guidelines for obtaining data for the nine core indicators for violence against women.

Second, Strengthening Multi-sectoral Services for Survivors To this end, UN Women is working to devise globally agreed standards and guidelines on the essential services and responses that are required to meet the immediate and mid-term safety, health, and other needs of women and girls subjected to violence. I am very pleased that we are now working in partnership with UNFPA and other UN agencies to deliver this initiative.

Third, Preventing Violence against Women and Girls To this end, we will advocate for and work towards a shared understanding at the global level about what works, and provide guidance to States and other stakeholders on how to develop an holistic framework to prevent violence against women and girls; including by working systematically and consistently with male leaders and men and boys at all levels and by further strengthening women’s economic and political participation.

Fourth, Strengthening Partnerships We will continue to engage civil society and the private sector in ending violence against women and girls, working with survivors to empower them, making sure their experiences are taken into consideration in the development of responses; and working with those women and girls who suffer multiple and intersecting forms of violence who are particularly vulnerable.

Fifth and finally, we will continue to improve the knowledge base for ending violence against women by developing additional modules and updating our virtual knowledge centre.

Honourable Members of Parliament,

I would now like to take a brief moment to discuss the post-2015 development agenda, especially its role in addressing the issue of violence against women. I also had the occasion to deliver a video statement on this in your Women’s Forum which took place past Saturday and which concentrated on the post-2015 framework. I applaud the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly for regularly organizing such a Women’s Forum and strengthening this network.

UN Women is calling for a stand-alone goal on gender equality, women’s rights and women’s empowerment and separately and concurrently gender equality mainstreamed across all goals. This is needed to address the structural foundations of gender-based inequality. To this effect, we are calling for the new framework to tackle three core areas: safety, access and voice, so women can live free of violence, enjoy equal access of opportunities and resources; and exercise their voice in leadership and participation.

In developing the post-2015 agenda and the 11th European Development Fund, we seek your support to ensure a strong focus on gender equality, women’s rights and empowerment and ending violence.

I thank you. All of us at UN Women look forward to strengthened collaboration with you and your countries through this forum to end violence against women and children.

• ‘One Woman’ – The UN Women song
• UN Under-Secretary-General and UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous
• Kirsi Madi, Deputy Executive Director for Resource Management, Sustainability and Partnerships
• Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, Deputy Executive Director for Normative Support, UN System Coordination and Programme Results
• Guiding documents
• Report wrongdoing
• Programme implementation
• Career opportunities
• Application and recruitment process
• Meet our people
• Internship programme
• Procurement principles
• Gender-responsive procurement
• Doing business with UN Women
• How to become a UN Women vendor
• Contract templates and general conditions of contract
• Vendor protest procedure
• Facts and Figures
• Global norms and standards
• Women’s movements
• Parliaments and local governance
• Constitutions and legal reform
• Preguntas frecuentes
• Global Norms and Standards
• Macroeconomic policies and social protection
• Sustainable Development and Climate Change
• Rural women
• Employment and migration
• Facts and figures
• Creating safe public spaces
• Spotlight Initiative
• Essential services
• Focusing on prevention
• Research and data
• Other areas of work
• UNiTE campaign
• Conflict prevention and resolution
• Building and sustaining peace
• Young women in peace and security
• Rule of law: Justice and security
• Women, peace, and security in the work of the UN Security Council
• Preventing violent extremism and countering terrorism
• Planning and monitoring
• Humanitarian coordination
• Crisis response and recovery
• Disaster risk reduction
• Inclusive National Planning
• Public Sector Reform
• Tracking Investments
• Strengthening young women's leadership
• Economic empowerment and skills development for young women
• Action on ending violence against young women and girls
• Engaging boys and young men in gender equality
• Sustainable development agenda
• Leadership and Participation
• National Planning
• Violence against Women
• Access to Justice
• Regional and country offices
• Regional and Country Offices
• Liaison offices
• UN Women Global Innovation Coalition for Change
• Commission on the Status of Women
• Economic and Social Council
• General Assembly
• Security Council
• High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development
• Human Rights Council
• Climate change and the environment
• Other Intergovernmental Processes
• World Conferences on Women
• Global Coordination
• Regional and country coordination
• Promoting UN accountability
• Gender Mainstreaming
• Coordination resources
• System-wide strategy
• Focal Point for Women and Gender Focal Points
• Entity-specific implementation plans on gender parity
• Laws and policies
• Strategies and tools
• Reports and monitoring
• Training Centre services
• Publications
• Government partners
• National mechanisms
• Civil Society Advisory Groups
• Benefits of partnering with UN Women
• Business and philanthropic partners
• Goodwill Ambassadors
• National Committees
• UN Women Media Compact
• UN Women Alumni Association
• Editorial series
• Media contacts
• Annual report
• Progress of the world’s women
• SDG monitoring report
• World survey on the role of women in development
• Reprint permissions
• Secretariat
• 2023 sessions and other meetings
• 2022 sessions and other meetings
• 2021 sessions and other meetings
• 2020 sessions and other meetings
• 2019 sessions and other meetings
• 2018 sessions and other meetings
• 2017 sessions and other meetings
• 2016 sessions and other meetings
• 2015 sessions and other meetings
• Compendiums of decisions
• Reports of sessions
• Key Documents
• Brief history
• CSW snapshot
• Preparations
• Official Documents
• Official Meetings
• Side Events
• Session Outcomes
• CSW65 (2021)
• CSW64 / Beijing+25 (2020)
• CSW63 (2019)
• CSW62 (2018)
• CSW61 (2017)
• Member States
• Eligibility
• Registration
• Opportunities for NGOs to address the Commission
• Communications procedure
• Grant making
• Accompaniment and growth
• Results and impact
• Knowledge and learning
• Social innovation
• UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women
• About Generation Equality
• Generation Equality Forum
• Action packs

• français
•   BAHÁNDÌAN Home
• College of Arts and Sciences
• Graduate Researches
• Master's Theses
• Master of Science in Social Work

Violence against women: Knowledge, experiences, and coping mechanisms among the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program women grantees in San Miguel, Iloilo

Thesis Adviser

Defense panel chair, defense panel member, share , description, suggested citation, shelf location, physical description, collections.

• Master of Science in Social Work [19]

Related items

Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.

Economic and psychosocial influences of family planning on the lives of women in Western Visayas: Final report 

A content analysis: RA 9710, otherwise known as “The Magna Carta of Women Act of 2009” vis-à-vis Article 333 of the Revised Penal Code 

Breast self-examination among women in a rural community: Knowledge, health beliefs and practices 

CPU Henry Luce III Library

EXTERNAL LINKS DISCLAIMER

This link is being provided as a convenience and for informational purposes only. Central Philippine University bears no responsibility for the accuracy, legality or content of the external site or for that of subsequent links. Contact the external site for answers to questions regarding its content.

If you come across any external links that don't work, we would be grateful if you could report them to the repository administrators .

Click DOWNLOAD to open/view the file. Chat Bertha to inform us in case the link we provided don't work.

Understanding Violence Against Women (1996)

Chapter: 1 introduction, 1 introduction.

Although men are more likely than women to be victims of violent crimes—61 per 1,000 for men, 42.6 per 1,000 for women (Bastian, 1995)—patterns of victimization differ. Women are far more likely than men to be victimized by an intimate partner (Kilpatrick et al., 1992; Bachman, 1994; Bachman and Saltzman, 1995). In fact, about three-quarters of all lone-offender violence against women in 1993 was perpetrated by someone known to the woman, compared with one-half of lone-offender violence against men (Bachman and Saltzman, 1995). It is important to note that attacks by intimates are more dangerous to women than attacks by strangers: 52 percent of the women victimized by an intimate sustain injuries, compared with 20 percent of those victimized by a stranger (Bachman and Saltzman, 1995). Women are also significantly more likely to be killed by an intimate than are men. In 1993, 29 percent of female homicide victims were killed by their husbands, ex-husbands, or boyfriends; only 3 percent of male homicide victims were killed by their wives, ex-wives, or girlfriends (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1993). 1

Women are more likely to be victimized by male offenders than by female offenders; about three-quarters of violent crimes against women are committed by males (Bachman, 1994). In one urban emergency room, violence was the most common cause of injury to women between the ages of 15 and 44 and the second most common cause of injury for all women (Grisso et al., 1991). Finally, women are far more likely than men to be sexually assaulted. The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) found women were 10 times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted than were men (Bastian, 1995). The annual rate of rape is estimated to be 7.1 per 1,000 adult women, and 13 percent of all women will experience forcible rape sometime during their lives (Kilpatrick et al., 1994).

The exact dimensions of violence against women are frequently disputed, yet even conservative estimates indicate that millions of American women experience violent victimization. The fear of violence, in particular the fear of rape, affects many more, if not most, women (Gordon and Riger, 1989). A few researchers have even suggested that learning to cope with the threat of violent victimization is a normative developmental task for females in the United States (Gilfus, 1995).

In spite of the attention that has been paid to violence against women in recent years, the research endeavor is relatively young, and much remains unknown. There really is no one field focused on violence against women per se. For example, studies on rape and sexual assault are distinct from those on intimate partner violence, which is distinct from the nascent study of stalking. And all this research is separate from that on violence in general. Many of the studies in this newly emerging field of research on violence against women are at an early stage of scientific rigor. The methodological weaknesses in the research on battering and rape have been discussed at length in other documents (Rosenbaum, 1988; Gelles, 1990; Koss, 1992, 1993; Rosenfeld, 1992; Smith, 1994). Definitions differ from study to study, making comparisons

difficult. Much of the research on both victims and perpetrators is based on clinical samples, samples of convenience, or other nonrandomized samples, so one cannot draw general conclusions. Sample sizes are often quite small. Only recently have sophisticated statistical analyses been used. Yet in spite of all the shortcomings, a lot has been learned about the extent of violence against women, about perpetrators of violence, and about the effects on victims.

What Is Violence Against Women?

The term violence against women has been used to describe a wide range of acts, including murder, rape and sexual assault, physical assault, emotional abuse, battering, stalking, prostitution, genital mutilation, sexual harassment, and pornography. There is little consensus in the still evolving field on exactly how to define violence against women. The major contention concerns whether to strictly define the word ''violence" or to think of the phrase "violence against women" more broadly as aggressive behaviors that adversely and disproportionately affect women.

Researchers in such fields as sociology and criminology tend to prefer definitions that narrowly define violence, definitions that can be operationalized. For example, Gelles and Straus (1979) defined violence as "any act carried out with the intention of, or perceived intention of, causing physical pain or injury to another person." Similarly, the National Research Council (NRC) report Understanding and Preventing Violence (Reiss and Roth, 1993) limited its definition to "behavior by persons against persons that intentionally threatens, attempts, or actually inflicts physical harm." The 1993 NRC study deliberately excluded behavior that inflicts harm unintentionally, while the Gelles and Straus definition includes behaviors that may be unintentional but are perceived by the victim to be intentional. The 1993 NRC study also specifically excluded from its definition of violence such events as verbal abuse, harassment, or humiliation, in which

psychological trauma is the sole harm to the victim. However, in its consideration of family violence and sexual assault, the report did include the psychological consequences of threatened physical injury.

In contrast to those definitions, researchers in such fields as psychology, mental health, and social work frequently consider "violence" to cover a wider range of behaviors. The Committee on Family Violence of the National Institute of Mental Health (1992) included in its definition of violence "acts that are physically and emotionally harmful or that carry the potential to cause physical harm … [and] may also include sexual coercion or assaults, physical intimidation, threats to kill or to harm, restraint of normal activities or freedom, and denial of access to resources." The Task Force on Male Violence Against Women of the American Psychological Association defined violence as ''physical, visual, verbal, or sexual acts that are experienced by a woman or a girl as a threat, invasion, or assault and that have the effect of hurting her or degrading her and/or taking away her ability to control contact (intimate or otherwise) with another individual" (Koss et al., 1994). Those who argue for these broader definitions suggest they more accurately represent the experiences of victims, who often say they find verbal and psychological abuse more harmful than actual physical abuse (Walker, 1979; Follingstad et al., 1990; Herman, 1995).

In the field of intimate partner violence or battering, the problem of violence against women is frequently characterized as one of coercive control that is maintained by tactics such as physical violence, psychological abuse, sexual violence, and denial of resources. The concern is with the array of behaviors that are used to dominate women. Physical violence need not be used often to be effective: "In fact, abusers may regret resorting to violence, but may perceive themselves as 'driven to it' when their other methods of enforcing subordination are insufficient" (Herman, 1995:2). In the field of rape, fear is a key element; it is an overriding concern for many women (Warr, 1985; Gordon and Riger, 1989; Klod-

awsky and Lundy, 1994). Even though women are less frequently the victims of violent crime than men, women fear crime more (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1991) and this fear appears to be largely based on their fear of rape (Riger et al., 1981). Many feminist theorists contend that this fear of rape serves to intimidate and control all women (e.g., Griffin, 1971; Brownmiller, 1975; Dworkin, 1991).

Although research would benefit from more unified definitions, the panel understands the difficulty of reaching agreement on definitional issues in light of the many complex behaviors that are involved. The panel held lengthy discussions on defining violence against women, focused on the key issue of whether psychological abuse should be included. The panel concluded that it could not resolve a question that is so open among researchers and that a global definition was not necessary for carrying out the task of reviewing what is known and recommending needed research (see below). Thus, the panel agreed that this study would be primarily a review of the literature on intimate partner violence (battering), rape, and sexual assault. The study does not include violence that occurs in conjunction with other crimes, such as robbery, burglary, or car theft. Nor does it include prostitution, sexual harassment, or issues such as genital mutilation, dowry murders, and trafficking in women that are more relevant internationally than in the United States.

Whether one uses a narrow definition confined to physical and sexual violence or one accepts a broader definition of violence against women, definitional debates also surround each of the individual components. For example, how does one define rape or sexual assault? Should all physical aggression or use of force be considered violent? What constitutes psychological abuse? These questions affect both the research that is done and how much it can be generalized.

Rape and Sexual Assault

Although all definitions of rape, sexual assault, and re-

lated terms include the notion of nonconsensual sexual behavior, the definitions used by researchers have varied along several dimensions. These include the behaviors specified, the criteria for nonconsent, the individuals involved, and who decides whether rape or sexual assault has occurred (Muehlenhard et al., 1992; Koss, 1993).

Many data sources and some researchers rely on legal definitions of rape, but those definitions differ from state to state and change over time. In common law, rape was traditionally defined as "carnal knowledge [penile-vaginal penetration only] of a female forcibly and against her will" (Bienen, 1980:174). The FBI's Uniform Crime Report (1993) still uses this narrow definition of rape even though most states have reformed their rape laws during the past 20 years. There have been three common reforms:

• broadening the definition to include sexual penetration of any type, including vaginal, anal, or oral penetration, whether by penis, fingers, or objects;
• focusing on the offender's behavior rather than the victim's resistance; and
• restricting the use of the victim's prior sexual conduct as evidence.

Many states have also removed the marital exemption from their rape laws. Some states and the U.S. Code (18 U.S.C. § 2241-2245) have replaced the term "rape" with terms such as "sexual assault," "sexual battery," or "sexual abuse'' (Epstein and Langenbahn, 1994). Many laws now have a series of graded offenses defined by the presence or absence of aggravating conditions, making sexual assault laws similar to other assault laws. For example, the U.S. Code uses the categories aggravated sexual abuse when someone "knowingly causes another person to engage in a sexual act by using force against that other person, or by threatening or placing that other person in fear that any person will be subjected to death, serious bodily injury, or kidnapping" or by knowingly causing

another person to become incapable of giving consent by rendering them unconscious or administering intoxicants. Sexual abuse involves lesser threats or engaging in sexual acts with a person who cannot give consent.

The definition of rape or sexual assault used in a research study has an effect on who is counted as a rape victim. The type of screening questions, the use of the word rape versus the use of behavioral descriptions, and other considerations all affect the research results (Koss et al., 1994). Higher rates of rape and sexual assault are found when behavioral descriptions and multiple questions are used than when surveys ask directly about rape or sexual assault. Women may not label experiences that meet the legal definition of rape or sexual assault as such, particularly if the perpetrator was an intimate partner or an acquaintance. The use of behavioral descriptions in studies assures that what is being measured are experiences rather than an individual's conceptions of the words rape or sexual assault.

In this report, rape means forced or coerced penetration—vaginal, anal, or oral; "sexual assault" means other forced or coerced sexual acts not involving penetration; and "sexual violence" includes both rape and sexual assault.

Physical Violence

Although defining physical violence would seem to be more clear-cut, there are disagreements both over definitions and measurement. As noted above, some researchers include only acts that were intended to cause physical harm or injury (Reiss and Roth, 1993); others argue that intentionality may be difficult to ascertain, and therefore physical violence should also include acts that are perceived as having the intention of producing physical harm or injury (Gelles and Straus, 1979). Akin to intentionality is the consideration of the context of the act. For example, should an action taken in self-defense be considered violent? Should an act be considered violent only if an injury occurs, or is the potential for

injury sufficient? Some definitions of physical violence, following legal models of assault, include threats of physical harm; others consider that threats fall under verbal or psychological abuse (Straus, 1990a). There is disagreement about whether behaviors such as slapping a spouse should be equated with more severe acts such as kicking or using a weapon. How violence is defined and measured influences the rate of violence found in a study: all else being equal, the broader the definition, the higher the level of violence reported (Smith, 1994).

Physical violence is most commonly measured by the Conflict Tactic Scales (Straus, 1979, 1990b) or some modification of it. Such scales ask about the occurrence of various representative behaviors. For example, the Conflict Tactic Scales list nine physical violence items:

• threw something at you;
• pushed, grabbed, or shoved you;
• slapped you;
• kicked, bit, or hit you with a fist;
• hit or tried to hit you with something;
• beat you up;
• choked you;
• threatened you with a knife or gun; and
• used a knife or fired a gun.

The last six behaviors in this list are considered to be "severe" physical violence.

In this report, "physical violence" refers to behaviors that threaten, attempt, or actually inflict physical harm. The behaviors listed in the Conflict Tactic Scales, while not all inclusive, typify the type of behaviors meant by physical violence. In this report, "severe" violence refers to the type of behaviors typified by the severe violence items on the scales.

Psychological Abuse

Psychological abuse (also refered to as psychological maltreatment or emotional abuse) has received less research attention than physical or sexual violence, and hence there have been fewer attempts to define it. At a minimum, psychological abuse refers to psychological acts that cause psychological harm (McGee and Wolfe, 1991). It has been argued that separating physical and psychological conditions "overly simplifies the topic and denies reality" (Hart and Brassard, 1991:63): physically violent acts can have psychological consequences and psychological acts can have physical consequences. The difficulty of separating physical violence and psychological abuse is exemplified by the treatment of threats of physical violence, with researchers split over whether to classify such threats as physical violence or psychological abuse. As with physical violence, there is debate about intentionality, that is, must the offender intend harm for an act to be considered abuse? Deciphering the intention of a psychological act may be even more difficult than for a physical act, and so intention is generally not included in defining psychological abuse.

On the basis of descriptions of psychological abuse as reported by battered women, Follingstad et al. (1990) described the following categories of behavior as psychological abuse:

• verbal attacks such as ridicule, verbal harassment, and name calling, designed to make the woman believe she is not worthwhile in order to keep her under the control of the abuser;
• isolation that separates a woman from her social support networks or denies her access to finances and other resources, thus limiting her independence;
• extreme jealousy or possessiveness, such as excessive monitoring of her behavior, repeated accusations of infidelity, and controlling with whom she has contact;
• verbal threats of abuse, harm, or torture directed at the woman herself or at her family, children, or friends;
• repeated threats of abandonment, divorce, or of initiating an affair if the woman does not comply with the abuser's wishes; and
• damage or destruction of the woman's personal property.

Similar to measurements of physical violence, inventories or scales of representative behaviors are used to measure psychological abuse. The Conflict Tactics Scales subscale on verbal aggression (Straus and Gelles, 1990) measures some aspects of psychological abuse: items include "insulted or swore at you," "did or said something to spite you," "threatened to hit or throw something at you," and ''threw or smashed or hit or kicked something." Other measures that have undergone validity testing are the Psychological Maltreatment of Women Inventory, which consists of 58 behavioral items (Tolman, 1988) and the Abusive Behavior Inventory, which includes items on both physical and psychological acts (Shepard and Campbell, 1992).

Interviews with battered women have detailed clear-cut examples of extreme psychological abuse occurring between and in conjunction with physically violent episodes. Psychological abuse frequently occurs with physical violence (Walker, 1979; Browne, 1987; Follingstad et al., 1990; Hart and Brassard, 1991), and research has repeatedly shown a strong association between psychological abuse and physical and sexual violence (e.g., O'Leary and Curley, 1986; Margolin et al., 1988; Sabourin et al., 1993). Some battered women describe psychological abuse—particularly ridicule—as constituting the most paintful abuse they experienced (Martin, 1976; Walker, 1979, 1984; Follingstad et al., 1990). It has been suggested that ridicule may undermine a woman's self-worth, making her less able to cope with both physical violence and psychological abuse (Follingstad et al., 1990). Studies of child abuse have similarly shown that psychological maltreatment is present in most cases of physical abuse, and it predicts detrimental outcomes for children while severity of physical

abuse does not (Claussen and Crittenden, 1991; Hart and Brassard, 1991).

In this report, "psychological abuse" refers to the types of behaviors described by Follingstad et al. (1990) and listed above, with the exception of threats of physical violence, which this report considers under physical violence. There is no separate section of the report devoted to psychological abuse because it has received very little study in and of itself. Rather, it is considered to be part of the pattern of behavior of serious physical violence, psychological abuse, and sometimes sexual violence, between intimate partners that has been well described (e.g., Martin, 1976; Dobash and Dobash, 1979; Walker, 1979; Browne, 1987). This pattern of behavior has been referred to in many terms, including domestic violence, spouse abuse, battering, and wife beating. "Wife beating" and "spouse abuse" imply married couples, although all intimate relationships—cohabiting, dating, and lesbian and gay couples—are frequently meant to be included under these terms. "Domestic violence," although usually referring to violence between intimate partners, is sometimes used to mean all forms of family violence, including child abuse, spouse abuse, sibling abuse, and elder abuse. These conflicting and overlapping terms and their uses are confusing in the study of violence against women.

In this report, "intimate partner violence" and "battering" are used synonymously to refer to the pattern of violent and abusive behaviors by intimate partners, that is, spouses, ex-spouses, boyfriends and girlfriends, and ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriend. 2 The term batterer is used to mean the perpetrator of intimate partner violence, and battered woman, the victim.

In research studies, dating couples are sometimes considered as intimate partners and sometimes as acquaintances. "Acquaintance" generally refers to someone known to the victim but neither related nor an intimate. Particularly in crime data, it is not always clear what acquaintance means; it may include dating couples. Hence, date rape and dating

violence are sometimes included in crime data as violence by nonintimate acquaintances.

Battered women who have left their batterers have described being stalked by the batterer (e.g., Walker, 1979). This behavior includes following and threatening the woman, repeated harassing phone calls, threatening her family, and breaking into her living quarters. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some batterers go to extraordinary lengths to track down their victims and that women who are stalked by expartners may be at high risk of being killed. Although descriptive information about stalking is available, few data exist.

The acknowledgment of stalking as a crime is a fairly recent phenomenon. California passed the first antistalking law in 1990 (Sohn, 1994); today, 48 states and the District of Columbia have passed antistalking statutes (Boychuk, 1994). Most state statutes define stalking as willful, malicious, and repeated following and harassing of another person. Many statutes include in the definition the intent to place the victim in reasonable fear of sexual battery, bodily injury, or death.

The Panel's Charge And Scope

In the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (Title IV of P.L. 103-322, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994), Congress directed the National Research Council to develop a research agenda on violence against women (Chapter 9, § 40291):

The Attorney General shall request the National Academy of Sciences, through its National Research Council, to enter into a contract to develop a research agenda to increase the understanding and control of violence against women, including rape and domestic violence. In furtherance of the

contract, the National Academy shall convene a panel of nationally recognized experts on violence against women, in the fields of law, medicine, criminal justice, and direct services to victims and experts on domestic violence in diverse, ethnic, social, and language minority communities and the social sciences. In setting the agenda, the Academy shall focus primarily on preventive, educative, social, and legal strategies, including addressing the needs of underserved populations.

In convening the Panel on Research on Violence Against Women, the National Research Council specifically charged the panel with the following tasks:

• synthesize the relevant research literature and develop a framework for clarifying what is known about the nature and scope of violence against women, including rape and domestic violence;
• supplement the research review with lessons learned by field professionals and service providers, including providers of services to ethnic, social, and language minorities; and
• identify promising areas of research to improve knowledge of the scope of the problem, and implementation and evaluation of preventive, educative, social, and legal interventions for dealing with violence against women.

In carrying out its charge, the panel limited its consideration to violence against women aged 12 and older. Child abuse and neglect and child sexual abuse were outside the purview of this panel and are covered by the report Understanding Child Abuse and Neglect (National Research Council, 1993), with a thorough research agenda.

The age of 12 was selected for several reasons. First, the types of violence to which teenage females are exposed are often more similar to violence directed at adult women than that directed at children. Second, sex offenders who prey on children seem to be quite different from those who target adolescent and adult women (Quinsey, 1984; Prentky, 1990).

Third, surveys on violence, such as The National Crime Victims Survey (NCVS), often include victims beginning at age 12. In addition, the highest rates of rape and sexual assault are found among women aged 12 to 24 years (Bachman and Saltzman, 1995): females in their teens and 20s are those most likely to be dating, and, therefore, subject to dating violence.

The panel's main task was to lay out a research agenda to improve understanding of violence and controlling that violence in the context of women's lives. This entailed reviewing the literature on intimate partner violence, rape, sexual assault, and stalking. The panel concentrated on studies published in peer-reviewed journals within the past 10 years, although very well-known or unique studies that were published earlier are also reviewed. The panel relied both on computerized literature searches, the expertise of various panel members, and monitoring a number of journals devoted to issues of violence. More than 300 journal articles and dozens of books were reviewed, many of which are cited in this report. The panel supplemented its literature review by holding a workshop of researchers and practitioners (see Appendix B ).

The panel's review and analysis is divided into three topics: nature and scope, causes and consequences, and preventive and treatment interventions. Chapter 2 describes what the research shows about the nature and scope of violence against women. Chapter 3 discusses possible causes of violence against women and the consequences of violence to women and society. Chapter 4 examines preventive and treatment intervention efforts. Lastly, Chapter 5 discusses issues of research infrastructure and science policy on violence against women. Recommendations for research are discussed at the end of each chapter.

Violence against women is one factor in the growing wave of alarm about violence in American society. High-profile cases such as the O.J. Simpson trial call attention to the thousands of lesser-known but no less tragic situations in which women's lives are shattered by beatings or sexual assault.

The search for solutions has highlighted not only what we know about violence against women but also what we do not know. How can we achieve the best understanding of this problem and its complex ramifications? What research efforts will yield the greatest benefit? What are the questions that must be answered?

Understanding Violence Against Women presents a comprehensive overview of current knowledge and identifies four areas with the greatest potential return from a research investment by increasing the understanding of and responding to domestic violence and rape:

• What interventions are designed to do, whom they are reaching, and how to reach the many victims who do not seek help.
• Factors that put people at risk of violence and that precipitate violence, including characteristics of offenders.
• The scope of domestic violence and sexual assault in America and its conequences to individuals, families, and society, including costs.
• How to structure the study of violence against women to yield more useful knowledge.

Despite the news coverage and talk shows, the real fundamental nature of violence against women remains unexplored and often misunderstood. Understanding Violence Against Women provides direction for increasing knowledge that can help ameliorate this national problem.

READ FREE ONLINE

Welcome to OpenBook!

You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

Show this book's table of contents , where you can jump to any chapter by name.

...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

Switch between the Original Pages , where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter .

Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

View our suggested citation for this chapter.

Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

Get Email Updates

Do you enjoy reading reports from the Academies online for free ? Sign up for email notifications and we'll let you know about new publications in your areas of interest when they're released.

  Create an account to save and access your bookmarked materials anytime, anywhere.

  create account   |     login

An Online Resource Library on Gender-Based Violence.

Special Collection Menu

Studies and reports on violence against women.

• International laws and policies to prevent and intervene in violence against women
• Programs, approaches, and resources to prevent and intervene in violence against women
• Additional resources and guidelines for building programs and advocacy
• Websites on international initiatives to end violence against women

Violence Against Women (VAW) is a global problem affecting many women and girls worldwide. VAW is often culture and context specific and has many individual and societal implications. Yet, there are similarities in the dynamics of VAW across all cultures. The documents included in this section highlight these differences and similarities and present information about the global prevalence and forms of VAW, as well as its costs and consequences. Here the documents are arranged by studies and reports that are global in nature and those that have a regional focus. Regional studies and reports were available for only some regions. For example, studies from Africa non-conflict regions were not available. Also included here are studies and reports of VAW in conflict-affected areas, although it is important to note that VAW that are unrelated to conflict also exists in these areas and must not be overlooked.

Violence Against Women and Girls in the Post-2015 Framework: Why and How

This paper discusses the ways that gender-based violence against women and girls (VAWG) undermines global development, peace, human rights and social justice as a root cause of inequality, and outlines why a new post-2015 international framework should tackle it.

WHO multi-country study on women's health and domestic violence against women: Initial results on prevalence, health outcomes and women's responses

Report findings document the prevalence of intimate partner violence and its association with women's physical, mental, sexual and reproductive health. Data is included on non-partner violence, sexual abuse during childhood and forced first sexual experience. Information is also provided on women's responses. Available in English, French, and Spanish.

Global Report on Trafficking in Persons

The most common form of human trafficking is sexual exploitation (79% of human trafficking cases). The victims of sexual exploitation are predominantly women and girls.

Global Perspectives on Sexual Violence: Findings from the World Report on Violence and Health

This report seeks to offer a glimpse of the "serious global public health problem" that is sexual violence as well as promising practices and opportunities for those working to end sexual violence.

Intimate Partner Violence: High Costs to Households and Communities

This three-country study in Bangladesh, Morocco, and Uganda estimated the economic costs of intimate partner violence at the household and community levels.

Evolving Men: Initial Results from the International Men and Gender Equality Survey

This report presents findings from a six-country study on men’s attitudes and practices as well as women’s opinions and reports of men’s practices. These practices included health practices, parenting, relationship dynamics, sexual behavior, and use of violence.

Violence Against Women in Melanesia and East Timor: Building on Global and Regional Promising Approaches

This study describes what is known about VAW in Melanesia and East Timor and assesses the effectiveness of efforts made in this region, particularly in increasing access to justice, services to survivors, and promising practices.

Towards Ending Violence Against Women in South Asia

This paper describes VAW in South Asian context. It discusses the policy initiatives made internationally and how these policies have yielded little action in this region. Core challenges in addressing VAW in this region are discussed and suggestions are offered for way ahead.

PROTECT: Identifying and Protecting High Risk Victims of Gender Based Violence - an Overview

This report summarizes project PROTECT which aims at contributing to the prevention and reduction of the most serious forms of gender-based violence against girls, young women and their children, such as grievous bodily harm, homicide and attempted homicide, including so-called honour crimes and killings.

Taking Stock: A review of the existing research on trafficking for sexual exploitation

This document reviews the current knowledge on trafficking for sexual exploitation to and within Europe, giving an overview of and insight into the main trends in research in this field. Each chapter presents and discusses a primary theme in the trafficking research: the definition and use of the trafficking concept; methods for data-collection and analysis; perspectives on and explanations of human trafficking; and challenges and knowledge needs in designing counter-trafficking measures.

Sexual violence in Latin America and the Caribbean: A Desk Review

This document reviews over 200 published and unpublished documents to explore the magnitude, patterns, and risk factors associated with sexual violence. Also included in this review are legal and policy frameworks, women’s responses to sexual violence, access to services and service response, promising interventions, research gaps, and priorities for future research.

A Review of Spanish-Language Literature from Latin America on Sex Trafficking

This technical report provides a Spanish-language literature review of resources on sex trafficking from Latin America.

Prosecuting Conflict-Related Sexual Violence at the International Criminal Court

This document analyzes the effectiveness of the Internal Criminal Court (ICC) in achieving justice for sexual violence survivors in conflict-affected areas and the role of ICC in preventing conflict-related sexual violence.

Conflict-related sexual violence: Report of the Secretary-General

This report offers information on progress made in the implementation of monitoring, analysis, and reporting arrangements and the placement of women’s protection advisers. It also includes information about parties to conflict credibility suspected of committing or being responsible for sexual violence and United Nations' progress in addressing conflict-related sexual violence.

• Content Topics
• Coalition Building
• Collaboration / Bridge Building
• Community Organizing / Mobilization / Engagement
• Coordinated Community Response
• Media Advocacy / Literacy
• Movement Building
• Raising Awareness
• Accessibility
• Core Competencies
• Counseling & Crisis Intervention
• Cultural Competence
• Financial Literacy / Asset Building
• Nontraditional Programming
• Prevention Programming
• Program Evaluation
• Residential / Shelter Services
• Screening & Assessment
• Self Care / Vicarious Trauma
• Trauma Informed Approach
• Fiscal Management
• Fund Development
• Funding Opportunities
• Leadership Development
• Nonprofit Management
• Proposal Writing
• Staff Development
• Child Welfare
• Civil Legal Rights & Protections
• Criminal Justice
• Disability Rights
• Economic Justice
• Employment Rights
• Immigration / Resettlement
• LGBTQ Rights
• Privacy & Confidentiality
• Public Benefits
• Racial Justice
• Reproductive Justice
• Animal Abuse
• Attitudes / Perception / Awareness
• Bystander / Upstander
• Campus / School
• Communities of Color
• Domestic Violence
• FGM / Honor Killings / Forced Marriage / Acid Attacks
• Health / Public Health
• Healthy Relationships
• Homicide / Lethality
• Housing & Homelessness
• Human Trafficking
• Immigrant / Refugee
• Incarceration
• Language & Literacy
• Mental Health
• Offenders / Perpetrators
• Older Adults
• Religion / Spirituality / Faith
• Resilience / Healing
• Self Defense
• Sex Work / Industry / Trade
• Sexual Health / Literacy
• Sexual Orientation / Gender Identity
• Sexual Violence
• Socioeconomic Class
• Substance Abuse
• Survivors in Contact
• War / Conflict
• Young People
• Material Types
• Special Collections
• NRCDV Publications
• Training Tools