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Affiliation
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Technical Officer-Violence against Women, Department of Reproductive Health and Research/Human Reproduction Programme, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland. |
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Abstract
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Background
In 1994, the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo noted that gender equality and equity, empowerment, and elimination of violence against women (VAW) were cornerstones of development.1 The Beijing Platform for Action followed, urging actions to prevent and eliminate VAW, including through legal reform, research and data collection.2 The gains made in putting VAW on the global development agenda in the 1990s were the result of strategic, intentional and thoughtful advocacy and work by many women’s organisations with support from some governments. The last 25 years have seen progress in addressing VAW in three ways: the recognition that, as well as a social, development and human rights issue, VAW is an urgent public health problem; the availability of both prevalence data and increased evidence on what works to prevent and respond to VAW; and more governments putting in place laws and policies and implementing programmes to address VAW.
Recognition of the problem
It was not until 2015 that long-standing advocacy culminated in the inclusion of a specific target (5.2) and indicators on “the elimination of all forms of VAW and girls” in the Sustainable Development Goal 5 on promoting gender equality and empowerment of women. The inclusion of a VAW target – which had not been possible in the Millennium Development Goals in 2000 – was made possible by the growing availability of data and the evidence-based advocacy of women’s organisations, UN and other organisations. Regionally, inter-governmental commitments were also adopted, e.g. the 1994 Inter-American (or Belem do Para) Convention, the 2011 Council of Europe Istanbul Convention and the 2003 Maputo Protocol in Africa.
In 2016, the World Health Assembly, a gathering of ministers of health from 193 governments, endorsed a global plan of action to strengthen the role of the health system in addressing violence, in particular against women and children.3 This recognised the need for urgent action to address VAW and highlighted the responsibilities of governments. Continuous evidence-based advocacy, alongside WHO guidelines and implementation tools on the health sector response to intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual violence, is contributing to the gradual integration of strategies to address VAW and girls in existing health programmes like those for HIV prevention, adolescent health, sexual and reproductive health including maternal health, and mental health. Challenges remain in the integration of VAW efforts in the health system in different country contexts such as: lack of inclusion of violence-response in health professionals’ curricula, no clear policies on partner violence, and lack of coordination among various actors and departments involved in planning and delivering integrated services ...
Language: en |