Violence Against Girls and Women - A Public Health Priority

UNFPA & Violence Against Women

UNFPA implements various interventions to help ending Gender Based Violence, including advocacy, data collection on prevalence, indicators of change, male involvement and prevention, training for the police, and support to legislative and policy changes. Addressing Gender Based Violence at health facilities is new to UNFPA programs, and rarely found even outside UNFPA.

Resources

A Practical Approach to Gender-Based Violence:
A Programme Guide for Health Care Providers and Managers.
This Programme Guide presents in a very concrete manner how to set up a programme with health care managers and providers and describes a step-by-step implementation process.

Introduction
Gender-based violence is recognized today as a major issue on the international human rights agenda. This violence includes a wide range of violations of women’s human rights, including trafficking in women and girls, rape, and wife abuse.

Forms of Gender-based Violence and Their Consequences
Violence against women and girls has a direct bearing on their reproductive and sexual health and rights, and is recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a priority public health issue.

Effects on Sexual and Reproductive Health Decision-making
The trauma of sexual coercion and assault at different stages of their life-cycle leaves many women and girls with severe loss of self-esteem and autonomy.

Policy Reform Process
From the foregoing review of the scope of gender-based violence, it is clear that addressing the issue of gender-based violence and its reproductive health effects requires the concerted effort of governments and civil society as a whole.

Effects on the Economics of Reproductive Health
Violence against women and girls puts a strain on the limited resources of most national public health care systems.