1 in 3 women around the world experience physical or sexual violence, mostly by an intimate partner. This makes it the most widespread, but among the least reported human rights abuses. It is prevalent during times of peace and stability, but risks escalate when a crisis strikes.
While data is scarce, studies indicate that gender-based violence in humanitarian emergencies is likely to be devastatingly common. A recent survey in South Sudan, for instance, found that more than half of women with a current or past intimate partner had experienced physical and/or sexual violence, while close to one-third of women reported sexual violence by a non-partner.
In conflicts, women’s bodies too often become battlefields, with violence used to humiliate and oppress. Risks are amplified because women can be uprooted from their homes, and separated from their usual support networks, while social and legal protection systems are weakened or destroyed.
The impacts of violence on women’s health
The short and long-term health consequences of violence for women’s health are many and significant. Women who experience violence are a higher risk of injuries, adverse sexual and reproductive health and mental health consequences.
For example, women who suffer intimate partner violence are twice as likely to experience depression, and 1.5 times more likely to acquire a sexually transmitted infection. It also has health consequences for their children, and socio-economic impacts on the families, communities and societies.
Women who are abused are more likely to seek healthcare for a variety of related conditions, even if (as often occurs) they do not explicitly disclose their experience. For these reasons, it is crucial to ensure that health workers are appropriately trained to provide effective, empathetic support, and that health facilities can provide safe and confidential care.
Supporting health workers to respond
WHO has published new clinical guidelines and tools to support countries and train healthcare providers to provide appropriate women-centred care, which includes a focus on empathetic listening, non-judgmental response, identifying women’s needs and concerns and facilitating their access to social support. With partners, more and more countries around the world are now adapting or updating their own guidelines, as well as providing new training programmes for health workers in line with these recommendations.
Within this work, significant attention has been paid to expanding support to countries and settings where conflict or disasters have intensified risks of gender-based violence. For example, in Syria, health providers and health organizations have been engaged towards facilitating appropriate care and protection.
In Afghanistan, the Ministry of Public Health is undertaking a training of 6500 health workers to help them support survivors. In Pakistan, health worker trainings have been undertaken in three provinces. In Myanmar, a national training of trainers was conducted as part of establishing a one-stop crisis centre to respond to violence against women in hospitals. In Uganda, training guidelines are being rolled out across health facilities.
"We want to make sure that if a woman comes in and discloses violence, health providers know what to do," says Elisabeth Roesch, a Technical Officer specializing in gender-based violence with WHO in emergencies.
"We want health care providers to fully understand the impact of gender-based violence. So if they suspect that a woman may have been subjected to such violence, then they know the next steps to take and how they can provide support," she adds.
No matter where in the world we live, we all have stories of how violence against women has affected our lives, someone we know, or in our communities. The theme of this year’s International Day on Elimination of Violence Against Women is #HearMeToo. The health system, health care providers and policy makers all have an essential role in ending violence against women; in making sure that survivors are heard; and that the world, even in its darkest corners, is a safer place for women and girls.