Violence Against Women a Growing Concern
Illustration: ArtDesign06685/shutterstock.com
By Kelly Jordan
Violence is part of our global fabric. It is expected, ever-present, and often, inescapable. The physical and mental harms caused by violence have profound implications on the public’s health, placing it as a major public health issue impacting people across cultures, sex, and economic divides. Women are often the target of violence. One in three women will experience physical, sexual, or psychological violence during their lifetimes.
According to the most recent United Nations report on femicides (killing a woman or girl based on her sex or gender), 85,000 women were killed on purpose in 2023. Of that number, 60% or 51,000 were at the hands of an intimate partner or family member. This is a 3,000 person increase from the previous year.
To put it in a more tangible context, one woman is being murdered every 10 minutes by an intimate partner or a family member. That’s 140 preventable deaths each day.
Progress has been made at an international level. In the past 10-15 years, there has been a global increase in laws protecting women from violence and murder.
Enough is Enough
“On one hand, you can say we're doing a better job of counting these acts of violence, but at the same time, these numbers have held steady, which is telling us that having a law on the books is not enough and documenting is not enough,” says Dabney P. Evans, associate professor of global health.
Evans notes there are questions we can ask about counting and reporting these deaths and if the true number is actually higher. “The bottom line is, how many is too many? I would argue that no matter what the number is, we know that this kind of mortality is preventable and therefore it's something we can and we should do something about.”
Approximately 80% of homicides worldwide are men, most often perpetrated by strangers. However, women are most often killed by people close to them. For her next study, Evans will be partnering with local DeKalb County officials to conduct a deep dive into cases of intimate partner homicide in the Atlanta community.
Evans emphasizes the importance of research and evidence practice to prevent intimate partner violence related deaths. She has been steadily integrating “survivor-centered design” into her merging principles of survivor-centered and trauma-informed care with user/human-centered design.
“I want to include survivors at every step of the process, everything from the formation of an idea to the co-creation of an intervention or program. Survivors should be community advisory board members, research participants, and most importantly the authors of their own destiny.”
Identifying Risk Factors, and Getting to Safety
Public health has identified factors that often are associated with increased likelihood of violence, including low education levels, reliance on alcohol, low-levels or access to income, gender inequalities, community norms, and more. A major risk factor for intimate partner violence victimization and perpetration, according to Evans, are those with a childhood history of abuse—either through experiencing child abuse or neglect, or witnessing it.
The emergence of violence in a relationship can come as a surprise. It may start with emotional or physical abuse, then can accelerate to more controlling behaviors, like financial abuse and then physical abuse. By the time physical abuse appears, people’s lives are often fully enmeshed, with housing, children, and finances involved. It can be very difficult to leave, especially if resources or support systems don’t exist.
The nation’s massive housing crisis is a factor on women’s ability to escape unsafe situations. Evans and her colleagues conducted a project recently that looked at discharge data from Grady Memorial Hospital, and only about 6% of patients they looked at went to a shelter. “These were people that were known to be survivors of sexual assault, intimate partner violence or human trafficking. 40% overall, were going to an unknown location, meaning they were probably going back to where they came from.”
Violence Against Women Harms Families, Children
There are limits to available shelters and the shelters themselves have capacity limits. At a time when funding for direct service agencies that provide housing is unknown, this reality emphasizes the need for why these programs are so essential and lifesaving, not just for women, but for entire families.
“I think that everyone can agree that children are most healthy when they are in environments that are free from abuse,” says Evans. “I’m talking about environments that are stable and peaceful for them, healthy home environments. If you care about children's health and you care about family's health, then we have to make sure that we have resources and supportive resources and funding for direct service agencies as well as research related to violence, because no one can be healthy in an environment where there's violence taking place.”
