Women’s Health, Intimate Partner Violence and Femicide
Declan McKeown*
HSE Public Health and Epidemiology, Dublin, Ireland
Submission: July 19, 2022; Published: October 18, 2022
*Corresponding author: Declan McKeown, HSE Public Health and Epidemiology, Dublin, Ireland
How to cite this article: Declan M. Women’s Health, Intimate Partner Violence and Femicide. J Gynecol Women’s Health 2022: 24(1): 556129. DOI: 10.19080/JGWH.2022.24.556129
Introduction
Gender-based violence is an international phenomenon and is a major factor in inequality of health outcomes between men, women and LGBTQ+ people. The disturbing prevalence of this form of violence may be based on society’s gender divisions, which marginalise women politically, socially and culturally. Women also face bias in the determinants and delivery of health. The specific inequalities that women face in terms of reproductive and maternal care, for example, have been thrown into sharp relief by the recent US Supreme Court ruling in Roe vs. Wade [1], but across the board, women experience differences in accessing health care [2], and are more exposed to gender-based violence [3], eating disorders [4] and depression [5]. This article will concentrate on gender-based violence, but it must also be remembered that concurrent health inequalities due, for example, to race, disability, age and material deprivation will amplify those inequalities with which women around the world are already struggling.
Harassment and Abuse
Despite employment and equality legislation, girls and women are still subjected to significant harassment and abuse in everyday work and social settings. Workplace harassment, for example, is simply another form of gender-based violence [6]. Orla O’Connor of the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) states that such abuse has a “devastating impact on women’s and girl’s lives, limiting their freedoms and preventing them from participating in society in the way they would wish [2]”. She goes on to add that fear of online abuse is preventing women, particularly those who are younger or from ethnic minority backgrounds, from running for public office. This further prevents those women who are most marginalised from having an effective legislative voice.
Intimate Partner Violence
The World Health Organisation estimates that, across their lifetime, one in three women are subjected to physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner, or sexual violence from a non-partner. Such violence is not only pervasive, but starts at a young age: one in four women aged 15-24 years who have been in a relationship will have experienced intimate partner violence by their mid-twenties [7]. According to a 2021 UN survey, almost one in four adolescent girls aged 15 to 19 who have been in a relationship have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner or husband [8]. Physical violence is almost always accompanied by emotional abuse [9].
In the EU, 47% of women aged 18 to 29 years have experienced psychological violence by a partner since age 15 [10]. One fifth (20%) of women in the EU aged 18 to 29 years have experienced physical or sexual violence by a partner since age 15. In the US in 2011, 43% of dating college women reported having experienced violent and abusive behaviour including physical, sexual, cyber, verbal or controlling abuse within an intimate relationship [11]. One in 11 female high school students have reported experiencing physical dating violence and one in nine female high school students have reported experiencing sexual dating violence in one year [12].
The global COVID lockdown has further exacerbated this grim statistic, the public health efforts to stem viral transmission unfortunately putting women in vulnerable family situations at greater risk of domestic abuse [13].
Femicide
Femicide can be broadly defined as the killing of women and girls by men, for the sole reason that they are women or girls. It differs specifically from homicide as most cases of femicide are committed by partners, ex-partners [14] or family members [15]. The Council of Europe contends that femicide is both a cause and a result of gender inequality and discrimination, both of which are root causes of all violence against women [16]. Femicide is often accompanied by ongoing abuse, be it sexual, physical, emotional or financial, and often includes coercive control perpetrated by a partner or ex-partner.
Categories of Femicide
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s 2019 publication “Global study on homicide: gender-related killing of women and girls [15] categorises femicide as shown in Table 1.
Victim and Perpetrator Characteristics
As with many other human conditions, epidemiological patterns can be evoked which help society to identify those most at risk of femicide, as well as perpetrator traits. Some of these are summarised in Table 2.
Governments’ Collective Response to Femicide and Intimate Partner Violence
The pervasive nature of violence against women argues for a whole-of-society approach, which addresses attitudes and belief at a local, national and international level, and ensures legislation and strategy to combat the issue. The most visible responses have come from the World Health Organisation and the United Nations.
WHO Response to Intimate Partner Violence
Intimate partner violence is a complex and pervasive phenomenon, but the World Health Organisation has submitted five recommendations to combat its impact in the international community [7]. The first entails sound gender policies including funded childcare and equal pay, all to be placed on a legal footing. This would have the effect of reducing social and economic gender inequalities. The second is a more receptive health system response with rapid referral to the most appropriate service. The third is intervention in schools and educational establishments to challenge discriminatory attitudes and beliefs. The fourth is targeted investment in sustainable and effective evidence-based prevention strategies at local, national and international levels. The fifth and final recommendation is around strengthened data collection and investment in high-quality surveys on violence against women, in order to better understand the causes and impacts, and to provide an evidence base for more effective interventions.
UN Response to Femicide
The United Nations General Assembly adopted two resolutions on gender-related killing of women and girls, one in 2013 [47] and the second in 2015 [48]. Leading on from this, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime made a series of recommendations designed to improve the prevention, investigation, prosecution and punishment of gender-related killing [49] and these were contained in the report of the Secretary-General on “Action against gender-related killing of women and girls”, issued in 2015 [50]. The Special Rapporteur called upon member states to establish active surveillance and monitoring of gender-related killings in order to further develop preventive measures and to guide policymaking in this area.
Conclusion
Gender-based violence and femicide are a complex phenomenon, rooted in patriarchy, discrimination and marginalisation of women. Combatting this issue requires a whole-of -society approach, and is becoming increasingly recognised by the legislators and educators. The health service needs to improve its awareness of, and data collection around, gender-based violence if it is to respond to what is one of the most pervasive inequalities in health today.
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