Gender-Based Violence, Human Rights, and the Health Sector: Lessons from Latin America

Abstract

that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or psychological harm or suffering for women, ineluding threats of such acts, coercion, or arbitrary deprivations of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life.1 A recent analysis of more than 50 population-based surveys found that between 10% and 50% (or more) of adult-women respondents around the world reported having been physi- cally assaulted by an intimate male partner at some point in their lives. Psychological abuse almost always accompanied physical abuse, and sexual abuse was present in a third to more than half of the cases.2 By labeling such violence as gender-based, the UN high- lighted the need to understand this violence within the con-