Guide for Community Assessments on Women's Health Care - ICRW

A10. Gender-based Violence
What is Gender-based Violence?
Gender-based violence is when a man abuses or exerts his power to cause harm to a woman or girl.
It is humiliating, painful and terrifying. The aim of the abuser is to intimidate, dominate and control
the other person.
What Are the Forms of Gender-based Violence?
Gender-based violence takes four <strong>for</strong>ms:
Physical: Hitting; slapping; punching; kicking; scratching; choking; pulling hair; biting; stabbing or
hitting with a weapon; cutting; burning; throwing objects at; throwing gasoline or acid into face;
<strong>for</strong>cing wife to abort a child; or dowry killings.
Emotional: Insulting; belittling; scolding; jealous suspicion; threatening; shaming and blaming the
wife <strong>for</strong> having no children or having a girl; not raising children properly; or threatening the wife <strong>for</strong>
questioning the husband’s extra-marital affairs.
Economic: Controlling all household spending; withholding necessary household money; wasting
family money (e.g., drinking, playing cards); preventing wife from earning money; <strong>for</strong>cing wife to do
work against her will; grabbing the money she has earned; <strong>for</strong>cing a wife/daughter to do excessive
work; or dowry harassment.
Sexual: Forcing a woman to have sex against her will (marital rape); <strong>for</strong>cing her to do oral/anal sex;
inflicting pain during sex; preventing wife from using birth control; refusing to use a condom when
wife has concerns about sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including HIV. Sexual violence also
includes rape, sexual teasing and coercion at work places or schools, and incest.
What Are the Effects of Gender-based Violence?
Gender-based violence results in the following:
Physical: Cuts and bruises; broken bones and other injuries; chronic back or neck pain; beatings to
the head, which may result in brain or eye damage, or hearing loss; disability (e.g., loss of function of
fingers, hands, legs); disfigurement; miscarriages; exposure and increased vulnerability to STIs and
HIV.
Psychological: Feeling belittled or worthless; shame; fear; isolation; loss of self-esteem; self-blame
and denial; loss of sense of control over life; stress; anxiousness; depression; sleeplessness; feeling
suicidal.
Economic: Deprived of income and economic support; loss of property; reduced ability to work and
generate income.
Effects on family: Family breaks up through desertion, separation, divorce, property loss; children are
fearful of violence, unable to talk, depressed, drop out of school.
Effects on HIV epidemic: Because of the fear of violence, the woman cannot negotiate safe sex, so
she cannot protect herself from getting HIV. She does not tell her husband if she discovers she has
an STI or is HIV-positive. As a result she may get infected or she may infect her husband, and the
HIV epidemic spreads.
Annex A: Fact Sheets 97