Violence Against Women and Children: The Need for Interventions

Violence against women and children is seen in one in three women. This essay explores what interventions were done to solve this social issue. There are different types of violence that can be defined towards women, but it is mostly physical and/or sexual. Other types of violence include mental and emotional. This violence is mostly experienced by an intimate partner. Not only does this violence and abuse have an impact on the women, it also has an impact on their families and communities. Violence against women begins early in life in ways such as selective abortion. Female infanticide, child prostitution, and forced early marriage. However, these also continue throughout the life cycle leading to physical partner abuse, forced prostitution and trafficking, and sexual harassment.

There are four things that WHO has dedicated to bringing attention to and responding to the violence against women which include research and evidence-building, developing guidelines and tools, setting norms and standards for effective health response, strengthening country capacity, and building the political will. They have declared this a public health issue. The Global Plan of Action created by WHO states that the use of our health systems to respond to, prevent, and lead efforts will address violence against women and girls. They also state that health providers and health systems have a critical role in supporting women and minimizing the impact. The vision that the WHO has includes a world of women and girls free from all violence and discrimination. Most violence comes from the thought of gender inequality and men believing they are superior to women.

Interventions that need to take place include new policies and laws to better protect the rights of women and children, engaging men and boys to help better control their mental capacity and helping to prevent the thought process of gender inequality and men being superior to women. These interventions are taking place in other countries such as New Zealand and Central Asia. In order for these interventions to take place and work worldwide, they need to be implemented worldwide. New Zealand is also taking steps to include family violence as a health problem and being able to implement them in public health. This is especially impressive to me because America is behind the rest of the world when it comes to healthcare. Knowing that other countries are putting family violence and violence against women and children as a top priority in healthcare is something that the United States and other countries need to take into consideration. However, there are limitations when it comes to these interventions. Because the United States does not have universal healthcare makes it especially hard to create laws and policies surrounding healthcare and public health as a whole. Depending on who is in charge of the country and the current Attorney General as well as the Secretary of Health and Human Services will determine how changes will take place in our country. If the wrong people are in charge, we could be taking steps backwards with our healthcare system.

Efforts to further improve these interventions are taking place daily with movements that are happening globally like the Me Too movement the Time’s Up movement, and the increase in feminism throughout the younger populations. These movements are bringing attention to women and women’s rights worldwide because of their high presence in the entertainment industry. Celebrities are making these movements known by bringing them up on National television on shows that are widely watched. They are also using social media as a platform to help spread the word.

Overall, the interventions taking place are making moves but there needs to be more done in order for it to have the full effect on the whole world.