What is Gender-Based Violence?

The Definition:

In 1993, the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women offered the first official definition of gender-based violence:

Article 1: Any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivations of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.

 

Article 2 of the Declaration states that the definition should encompass, but not be limited to, acts of physical, sexual, and psychological violence in the family, community, or perpetrated or condoned by the State, wherever it occurs. These acts include: spousal battery; sexual abuse, including of female children; dowry-related violence; rape, including marital rape; female genital mutilation/cutting and other traditional practices harmful to women; non-spousal violence; sexual violence related to exploitation; sexual harassment and intimidation at work, in school and elsewhere; trafficking in women; and forced prostitution.

Stop the Violence

The consequences of gender-based violence are devastating. Survivors often experience life-long emotional distress, mental health problems and poor reproductive health. Abused women are also at higher risk of acquiring HIV. Women who have been physically or sexually assaulted tend to be intensive long-term users of health services. The impact of violence may also extend to future generations: Children who have witnessed abuse, or were victims themselves, often suffer lasting psychological damage.

Speak Out

The cost to countries is high as well: Increased health care expenditures; demands on courts, police and schools; and losses in educational achievement and productivity. In Chile, domestic violence cost women $1.56 billion in lost earnings in 1996, more than 2 percent of the country’s GDP. In India, one survey showed women lost an average of seven working days after an incident of violence. Domestic violence constitutes the single biggest health risk to Australian women of reproductive age, resulting in economic losses of about $6.3 billion a year. In the United States, the figure adds up to some $12.6 billion annually. International financial institutions have also begun to take note. The Inter-American Development Bank, for example, is addressing gender-based violence through its lending portfolios.

Gender-based violence may involve intimate partners, family members, acquaintances or strangers. Though it was long regarded a private matter, it is now recognized by the international community as a violation of human rights, rooted in women’s subordinate status. The action plans from the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing) recognized the elimination of gender-based violence as central to gender equality and the empowerment of women. The term comprises domestic violence, sexual and psychological forms of abuse as well as harmful practices, such as female genital mutilation/cutting. It also includes prenatal sex selection and female infanticide – extreme manifestations of the low social value placed on girls. Systematic rape, increasingly used as a tool of terror during armed conflict, has prompted the adoption of major international agreements to protect women and punish perpetrators.