Tackling Violence against Women: From Knowledge to Practical

introduction
Although the number of women who are violently injured and killed each
year worldwide is not known with any precision, available evidence, while
unsystematic and incomplete, already indicates that violence against
women (VAw) is ‘a universal problem of epidemic proportions’ (UNIFEM,
2007). VAw occurs in both conflict and non-conflict situations. It is often less
evident in its occurrence and effects than the deaths and injuries of men as
combatants in armed conflicts or as gang members in violence related to
drug wars. Yet women and girls are often victimized or adversely affected in
other ways in these and all other armed violence settings. women and girls
are also common targets of sexual violence in armed conflict and fragmented
societies, and they suffer disproportionately from its indirect consequences.
In non-conflict situations, women are the victims of intimate-partner (or
‘domestic’) and sexual violence, honour killings, and dowry-related violence
(gD Secretariat, 2008b).
The economic costs associated with armed violence are tremendous. It is
estimated that the annual economic cost of armed violence in terms of lost
productivity due to violent homicides is between USD 95 billion and USD 163
billion alone (gD Secretariat, 2008b, p. 89). Additional costs include medical
costs associated with treating the injured or indirect costs such as loss of
income from the victim’s inability to work. However, a focus on costs ignores
the wider relationship among armed violence, livelihood perspectives,
development, and the (indirect) impact on women and men. The gendered
dynamic of these relationships is complex. As the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) states:
when husbands are killed, women frequently lose their access to farmlands and
the right to live in their marital homes. The resulting survival choice for many
affected women and children is prostitution, commercial labour or domestic
servitude. This has consequences for ongoing exposure to violence and ill
health from communicable diseases and poor working conditions, as well as
future community exclusion (OECD, 2009, p. 32).
The geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development (gD) is a
diplomatic initiative built around the recognition that armed violence and
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