"The WHO Multi-country Study on Women's Health and Domestic Violence against Women is a landmark research project, both in its scope and in how it was carried out. For the results presented in this report, specially trained teams collected data from over 24 000 women from 15 sites in 10 countries representing diverse cultural settings: Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, Japan, Namibia, Peru, Samoa, Serbia and Montenegro, Thailand, and the United Republic of Tanzania. The use of a standardized and robust methodology has substantially reduced many of the difficulties that affected earlier work on violence against women, and produced results that permit comparison and analyses across settings."--Page 1.
The Multi-Country Study, which began in 1997, aims to: Obtain reliable estimates of the prevalence of violence against women in different countries throughout the world, in a consistent, standardized manner which will allow for inter-country comparisons; Document the association between domestic violence against women and a range of health outcomes; Identify risk and protective factors for domestic violence against women, and compare them between settings; Explore and compare the coping strategies used by women experiencing domestic violence; Use the findings nationally and internationally to advocate for an increased response to domestic and sexual violence against women.
"This report presents initial results based on interviews with 24 000 women by carefully trained interviewers. The study was implemented by WHO, in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), PATH, USA, research institutions and women's organizations in the participating countries. This report covers 15 sites and 10 countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, Japan, Peru, Namibia, Samoa, Serbia and Montenegro, Thailand and the United Republic of Tanzania. "
Produced in collaboration with the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), the Norwegian Agency for International Development (NORAD) and the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA)
Worldwide, patterns of violence against women differ markedly from violence against men. For example, women are more likely than men to be sexually assaulted or killed by someone they know. The United Nations has defined violence against women as "gender-based" violence, to acknowledge that such violence is rooted in gender inequality and is often tolerated and condoned by laws, institutions, and community norms. Violence against women is not only a profound violation of human rights, but also a costly impediment to a country's national development. While gender-based violence occurs in many forms throughout the life cycle, this review focuses on two of the most common types-physical intimate partner violence and sexual violence by any perpetrator. Unfortunately, the knowledge base about effective initiatives to prevent and respond to gender-based violence is relatively limited. Few approaches have been rigorously evaluated, even in high-income countries. And such evaluations involve numerous methodological challenges. Nonetheless, the authors review what is known about more and less effective-or at least promising-approaches to prevent and respond to gender-based violence. They present definitions, recent statistics, health consequences, costs, and risk factors of gender-based violence. The authors analyze good practice initiatives in the justice, health, and education sectors, as well as multisectoral approaches. For each of these sectors, they examine initiatives that have addressed laws and policies, institutional reforms, community mobilization, and individual behavior change strategies. Finally, the authors identify priorities for future research and action, including funding research on the health and socioeconomic costs of violence against women, encouraging science-based program evaluations, disseminating evaluation results across countries, promoting investment in effective prevention and treatment initiatives, and encouraging public-private partnerships.
This is an international, comparative survey which interviews random samples of women about their experiences with male violence. The authors form a management team for the International Violence Against Women Survey (IVAWS). The primary objective of IVAWS is to investigate the level and nature of victimization of women in a number of countries worldwide This work builds on the international network and experience of the European Institute of Crime Prevention and Control (HUENI).
"This study uses household and individual-level data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) program to examine the prevalence and correlates of domestic violence and the health consequences of domestic violence for women and their children. Nationally representative data from nine countries - Cambodia (2000), Colombia (2000), the Dominican Republic (2002), Egypt (1995), Haiti (2000), India (1998-1999), Nicaragua (1998), Peru (2000), and Zambia (2001-2002) - are analyzed within a comparative framework to provide a multifaceted analysis of the phenomenon of domestic violence"--P. xv.
