Preventing violence against women: beyond 16 days

Abstract

16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, an annual, global civil society campaign calling for the prevention and elimination of violence against women and girls, ended on Dec 10. This year, the 30th anniversary of the event, carries particular poignancy. Violence against women and girls, already at high levels before COVID-19, has risen markedly during the pandemic and increased in severity, according to Oxfam. Government responses to the pandemic included lockdowns, suspension of social services, and economic hardship, many of which had the consequences of placing women at increased risk of violence, while in many countries, financial and logistical support for violence response services was withdrawn. Violence against women has received a tiny fraction of the attention and funding of the COVID-19 pandemic response, despite the efforts of campaigners. Encompassing physical assault, harassment, cyberviolence, rape, and sexual violence, gender-based violence toward women is underpinned by gender inequality, codified in sociocultural norms, and entrenched through laws and policies that accord increased status and power to men relative to women. Gender-based violence is so common as to be pervasive in women's lives. Globally, one in three women experience sexual or physical violence in their lifetimes, usually by an intimate partner. One in ten women have experienced cyberviolence, threatening women's safe access to online spaces that are increasingly crucial for full participation in society. Poorly defined and legislated against, cyberviolence is not separate from physical violence, but often interwoven with it. Although violence affects all women, the burden falls particularly on the intersection of disadvantage created by age, race, class, and gender and sexual identity. The physical, mental, social, and economic consequences of this violence are devastating and lifelong for women, their children, their families, and whole communities. There is evidence that violence can be prevented. A Lancet Series paper on the prevention of violence against women brought together this evidence in 2014. Interventions such as community mobilisation and empowerment training for women and girls show promising evidence of effectiveness. But the failure to adequately tackle gender-based violence is rooted in the low value and status afforded to women, the disregard for their experience, a tolerance of misogyny, and ultimately a normalisation of abuse and harassment towards them. Ultimately, the best evidence-based interventions are those that seek to change social norms and support gender equity. For too long violence against women has been positioned as a domestic issue, deflecting attention from the fundamental gender disparities in society as a whole that facilitate and tolerate it. The Lancet Commission Countering the Pandemic of Gender-based Violence and Maltreatment of Young People is working to bring an intersectional and interdisciplinary, gender-identity inclusive, all-of-society approach to understand such violence and how societal norms play a role. The Commission seeks to advance an agenda to address gender-based violence, to review both the economic and health costs, to show the urgency to act, and to recommend effective policies and tools that can be rapidly scaled up. There has been a systemic failure to address violence against women and girls on a global, national, and local level. Violence against women is rising—yet the disconnect between structural discrimination and the violent killing of women continues. The relation between cyberviolence and the spillover into physical repercussions goes unchallenged. Women reporting violence are dismissed or penalised. After each tragic incident, each violent death, each sexual attack, there is shock and sadness, yet no challenge to social structures at the level of legislation, policy, provision of services, including health and education for women and children, and cultural gender norms that maintain violence against women. Gender-based violence is preventable, but only when it is recognised as an inevitable outcome of the concentration of power and wealth in male hands can the fundamental changes be made that will keep women and girls free from harassment and discrimination. When women are excluded and marginalised from positions of power, gender-based violence is tolerated, normative, and thus abetted. Embedding women and their rights in decision making—creating gender equity—is the only way to stop this. More than 16 days of activism will be needed to achieve it. For more on the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence see https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/take-action/16-days-of-activismFor more on the dual crises of gender based violence and COVID-19 see https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/621309/bp-ignored-pandemic-251121-en.pdf?sequence=19For the Lancet Series on violence against women see https://www.thelancet.com/series/violence-against-women-and-girls For more on the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence see https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/take-action/16-days-of-activism For more on the dual crises of gender based violence and COVID-19 see https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/621309/bp-ignored-pandemic-251121-en.pdf?sequence=19 For the Lancet Series on violence against women see https://www.thelancet.com/series/violence-against-women-and-girls A diagonal and social protection plus approach to meet the challenges of the COVID-19 syndemic: cash transfers and intimate partner violence interventions in Latin AmericaLatin America has been particularly hard hit by the COVID-19 syndemic, including the associated economic fallout that has threatened the livelihoods of most families. Social protection platforms and policies should have a crucial role in safeguarding individual and family wellbeing; however, the response has been insufficient to address the scale of the crisis. In this Viewpoint, we focus on two policy challenges of the COVID-19 syndemic: rapidly and effectively providing financial support to the many families that lost livelihoods, and responding to and mitigating the increased risk of intimate partner violence (IPV). Full-Text PDF Open AccessCountering the pandemic of gender-based violence and maltreatment of young people: The Lancet CommissionViolence against women and young people is persistent and perverse. Few if any health conditions or risk factors affect such large segments of the global population, and people living in poverty and vulnerable situations, including forced migration and humanitarian emergencies, are especially at risk. More than a third of women and girls—over 1 billion people—experience intimate partner violence or non-partner physical or sexual violence in their lifetime.1–3 Nearly a quarter of all adults worldwide report physical abuse as children and the lifetime prevalence of childhood sexual abuse is unacceptably high for both sexes, although more frequent for girls (almost 20%) than boys (almost 10%). Full-Text PDF