The authors examine good practice approaches in justice, health, education, and multisectoral approaches. In each sector, they identify good practices for: (1) law and policies; (2) institutional reforms; (3) community-level interventions; and (4) individual behavior change strategies. The authors offer conclusions and recommendations for future work on gender-based violence: It is essential to focus on the prevention of GBV, not just on services for its survivors. Prevention is best achieved by empowering women and reducing gender disparities, and by changing norms and attitudes which foster violence. Interventions should employ a multisectoral approach and work at different levels--individual, community, institutional, and laws and policies. GBV may be common in the Latin America and the Caribbean region, but there are promising approaches available to begin working toward its elimination"--Abstract.

Morrison, Ellsberg, and Bott present an overview of gender-based violence (GBV) in Latin America, with special emphasis on good practice interventions to prevent GBV or offer services to its survivors or perpetrators. Intimate partner violence and sexual coercion are the most common forms of GBV, and these are the types of GBV that they analyze.GBV has serious consequences for women's health and well-being, ranging from fatal outcomes, such as homicide, suicide, and AIDS-related deaths, to nonfatal outcomes, such as physical injuries, chronic pain syndrome, gastrointestinal disorders, complications during pregnancy, miscarriage, and low birth-weight of children. GBV also poses significant costs for the economies of developing countries, including lower worker productivity and incomes, and lower rates of accumulation of human and social capital.The authors examine good practice approaches in justice, health, education, and multisectoral approaches. In each sector, they identify good practices for: (1) law and policies; (2) institutional reforms; (3) community-level interventions; and (4) individual behavior change strategies.The authors offer conclusions and recommendations for future work on gender-based violence:- It is essential to focus on the prevention of GBV, not just on services for its survivors.- Prevention is best achieved by empowering women and reducing gender disparities, and by changing norms and attitudes which foster violence.- Interventions should employ a multisectoral approach and work at different levels - individual, community, institutional, and laws and policies.GBV may be common in the Latin America and the Caribbean region, but there are promising approaches available to begin working toward its elimination.This paper - a product of the Poverty Sector Unit, Latin America and the Caribbean Region - is part of a larger effort in the region to address issues of violence and its impact on development.

Domestic violence, interpersonal violence, intimate partner violence, or gender-based violence continues to be a social problem that is rarely understood or discussed in many parts of society, worldwide. The same holds true in the Anglophone Caribbean. Most Caribbean societies are patriarchal in nature, as most men govern and create the political and economic landscape where citizens live. This edited volume brings together reputable scholars of rigorous academic research from various disciplines (e.g., political science, law, linguistics, criminology, nursing, social work and psychology) to clearly explain the conceptual definition of domestic violence within the Latin American and Caribbean region’s socio-political context. It will highlight who are the perpetrators as well as the victims of domestic violence and the consequences of allowing domestic violence to perpetuate in the region. This book is unique in the market today, as it is the only book grounded in the Caribbean providing a comprehensive overview of domestic violence with regards to the significance, victims, perpetrators, and the consequences.

This indispensable text reader provides a broad-ranging and thoughtfully organized feminist introduction to the ongoing controversies of development in Latin America and the Caribbean. Designed for use in a variety of college courses, the volume collects an influential group of essays first published in Latin American Perspectives—a theoretical and scholarly journal focused on the political economy of capitalism, imperialism, and socialism in the Americas. The reader is organized into thematic sections that focus on work, politics, and culture, and each section includes substantive introductions that identify key issues, trends, and debates in the scholarly literature on women and gender in the region. Demonstrating the rich and multidisciplinary nature of Latin American studies, this collection of timely, empirical studies promotes critical thinking about women's place and power; about theory and research strategies; and about contemporary economic, political, and social conditions in Latin America and the Caribbean. Valuable as both a supplementary or primary text, Rereading Women makes a convincing claim for a materialist feminist analysis. It convincingly shows why women have become an increasingly important subject of research, acknowledges their gains and struggles over time, and explores the contributions that feminist theory has made toward the recognition of gender as a relevant—indeed essential—category for analyzing the political economy of development.

Worldwide, patterns of violence against women differ markedly from violence against men. For example, women are more likely than men to be sexually assaulted or killed by someone they know. The United Nations has defined violence against women as "gender-based" violence, to acknowledge that such violence is rooted in gender inequality and is often tolerated and condoned by laws, institutions, and community norms. Violence against women is not only a profound violation of human rights, but also a costly impediment to a country's national development. While gender-based violence occurs in many forms throughout the life cycle, this review focuses on two of the most common types-physical intimate partner violence and sexual violence by any perpetrator. Unfortunately, the knowledge base about effective initiatives to prevent and respond to gender-based violence is relatively limited. Few approaches have been rigorously evaluated, even in high-income countries. And such evaluations involve numerous methodological challenges. Nonetheless, the authors review what is known about more and less effective-or at least promising-approaches to prevent and respond to gender-based violence. They present definitions, recent statistics, health consequences, costs, and risk factors of gender-based violence. The authors analyze good practice initiatives in the justice, health, and education sectors, as well as multisectoral approaches. For each of these sectors, they examine initiatives that have addressed laws and policies, institutional reforms, community mobilization, and individual behavior change strategies. Finally, the authors identify priorities for future research and action, including funding research on the health and socioeconomic costs of violence against women, encouraging science-based program evaluations, disseminating evaluation results across countries, promoting investment in effective prevention and treatment initiatives, and encouraging public-private partnerships.