Search Results (1,035)

Background: Nonfatal strangulation (NFS) is one of the most lethal forms of intimate partner violence (IPV) that is associated with increased risk of future homicide, yet it frequently goes unrecognized within healthcare settings. Black women experience disproportionately high rates of IPV while simultaneously facing structural barriers to healthcare access. Little research has examined how Black women survivors experience strangulation and navigate decisions about seeking care following NFS and other potentially lethal forms of IPV. Methods: This secondary qualitative analysis draws on interview data from 28 Black women survivors of IPV who participated in a larger community-engaged mixed-methods study conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic in an Upper Midwestern state. Of these, 17 (60.7%) both reported experiencing strangulation on the parent-study survey and described experiences consistent with nonfatal strangulation during their qualitative interviews and comprised the analytic sample for the present analysis. Guided by Black Feminist Thought, semi-structured interviews examined survivors’ experiences with violence, safety, help-seeking, and interactions with healthcare and social service systems. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis following Schensul and Schensul. Results: Three interconnected themes were identified. First, survivors described racism and anticipated discrimination as significant barriers to seeking healthcare following strangulation. Second, shame, stigma, and fear of judgment contributed to self-silencing and avoidance of formal services. Third, survivors described strangulation as a terrifying and potentially lethal form of violence occurring within broader histories of polyvictimization and cumulative trauma. Despite experiencing serious symptoms, many participants avoided healthcare because they feared retaliation from abusive partners, anticipated dismissive treatment, or believed healthcare systems would be unable to protect them. Together, these experiences illustrate how structural racism, institutional mistrust, and gendered violence intersect to shape healthcare decision-making. Conclusions: Findings suggest that barriers to care following strangulation extend beyond individual help-seeking behaviors and are deeply rooted in structural inequities. Improving outcomes for Black women survivors requires enhanced provider training on strangulation assessment, trauma- and violence-informed approaches, culturally responsive care, and healthcare system reforms that address racism, mistrust, and survivor safety. These findings have important implications for reducing disparities in IPV-related health outcomes and improving responses to high-lethality violence. Full article

This article examines when a gender-responsive public procurement obligation becomes institutionally verifiable. It analyzes Brazil’s federal policy reserving jobs for women experiencing domestic and family violence, established by Law No. 14.133/2021 and regulated by Decree No. 11.430/2023 and No. 12.516/2025. The study uses the empirical legal design documented in the underlying doctoral thesis and preserves four non-interchangeable evidentiary layers: an audit of 163 records; a retained corpus of 74 documentary units; a comparative matrix of 67 cases and 335 evidence records; and aggregate official and administrative information. The expanded matrix identified 16 cases with high density across all four dimensions, five with partial intersectoral integration, and 51 that were not verifiable through the documentary proxy. These figures describe the expanded corpus and are not used as a federal compliance denominator. Official aggregate data documented localized implementation involving 20 women; a later administrative update reported 143 women hired across five federative units, without contract-level granularity. The findings indicate that contractual enforceability, intersectoral connectivity, and protected verifiability are necessary institutional conditions—although not sufficient evidence of social impact—for converting the mandate into a monitorable practice. The article distinguishes direct federal evidence, normative diffusion, documentary absence, and non-verifiability without inferring a national effectiveness rate. Full article

Women survivors of domestic violence often experience persistent psychological distress, yet evidence supporting community-based arts interventions remains limited, particularly in mainland China. This mixed-methods pilot study evaluated the preliminary effectiveness of Canvas of Strength, a community-based arts intervention for women survivors of domestic violence in Liaoning Province, China. Sixteen participants were recruited from a community service center and allocated to intervention (n = 8) and control (n = 8) groups. Depression, anxiety, and self-esteem were assessed at baseline, post-intervention, and six-month follow-up using standardized measures, while semi-structured interviews explored participants’ experiences. The intervention group demonstrated significant improvements across all three psychological outcomes following the intervention, with these gains largely maintained at six-month follow-up, whereas no significant changes were observed in the control group. Qualitative findings revealed enhanced emotional expression, positive cognitive reframing, improved self-perception, and strengthened interpersonal and social engagement, providing contextual support for the quantitative findings. Together, these findings suggest that Canvas of Strength shows promise as a community-based arts intervention for improving the psychological well-being of women survivors of domestic violence. Given the pilot nature and small sample size of this study, further evaluation in adequately powered trials is warranted. Full article

This article analyses female genital mutilation (FGM) from an interdisciplinary perspective, with particular attention to its identity-related dimension and to the interaction between culture, religion, exclusion, and legal responses to violence against women. The study examines the evolution of its treatment and public perception, from the relative invisibility characteristic of early anthropological approaches within Western public and political agendas to its progressive recognition as an extreme form of gender-based violence. Methodologically, it is based on a documentary and comparative analysis of normative instruments, institutional reports, and specialised academic literature. As a specific contribution, the article develops the category of “absolute or totalising otherness” to explain identity-based exclusion and the particular vulnerability of women and girls simultaneously exposed to forms of exclusion based on sex, culture, race, religion, and migration status. The analysis identifies several barriers to eradication, including the lack of comparable data capable of assessing its actual prevalence, proposals advocating the medicalisation of FGM as a purported lesser evil, and dynamics of exclusion in host countries that may reinforce reactive identities and re-signify the value of identity-based rites of passage. The findings further suggest that the persistence of FGM depends not only on these factors, but also on the narratives that sustain or challenge the practice, within which religious discourse acquires particular significance. However, the position adopted by religious spokespersons, leaders, and institutions remains ambivalent: they may provide an argument or alibi that sacralises the rite or, conversely, serve to challenge the false belief that it constitutes a religious mandate, thereby excluding the practice from the moral and religious order. Full article

Femicide is one of the most extreme manifestations of gender-based violence and remains a persistent challenge across Latin America. This study examines the association between socioeconomic and contextual factors and femicide rates across 12 Latin American countries during 2014–2024 using an unbalanced panel dataset. The dependent variable is the femicide rate per 100,000 women, while the explanatory variables include the Gini index, GDP per capita, female labor force participation, and intentional homicide rates. Owing to heteroskedasticity, serial correlation, and contemporaneous dependence across panels, the model was estimated using Panel-Corrected Standard Errors (PCSE) with a common AR(1) disturbance structure. The Gini index was negatively and statistically significantly associated with femicide rates (β = −0.057, p = 0.004), whereas intentional homicide rates showed a positive and statistically significant association (β = 0.059, p < 0.001). GDP per capita retained a negative but non-significant coefficient (β = −0.371, p = 0.076), while female labor force participation was also negative and non-significant (β = −0.008, p = 0.556). These findings indicate that the associations between femicide and socioeconomic conditions are sensitive to model specification, while income inequality and generalized lethal violence remain statistically significant correlates. The results underscore the multidimensional nature of femicide and the need for cautious interpretation of aggregate cross-national associations. Full article

Cultural constructions of masculinity in rural South Africa perpetuate gender-based violence (GBV), yet women’s perspectives remain underexplored, particularly in the high-prevalence OR Tambo District. This study examined women’s perceptions and lived experiences of masculinity constructs contributing to GBV in Gxulu. It is a rural community situated in the Libode Eastern Cape Province, South Africa, under the Nyandeni municipality 5160 A phenomenological qualitative design using purposive sampling for saturation was used. Semi-structured interviews conducted in isiXhosa and English were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. A total of 29 women participated in the study, with an average age of 33.4 years. The study found that women held negative and positive perceptions of masculine characteristics. Participants perceived that masculinity may be characterized by unfaithfulness, with expectations of men to lead and make decisions possibly contributing to financial abuse of women. Masculinity may also be characterized by substance and alcohol misuse, with expectations of men being financially stable providers possibly contributing to physical abuse. Additionally, women perceived that alcohol led to sexual abuse and created men who were unable to express their emotions, leading to emotional abuse. These women’s insights reveal aspects of masculinity fueling GBV cycles, underscoring the need for norm-corrective, community-based interventions to foster gender-equitable norms in the rural Eastern Cape. Full article

Background/Objectives: Obstetric violence is increasingly recognised as a violation of women’s autonomy, dignity, and right to respectful maternity care, yet its interpretation may differ between women receiving care and midwives providing care within hospital systems. This study explored obstetric violence from the perspectives of women who perceived their childbirth as traumatic and midwives working in hospital birth settings. Methods: This qualitative study was conducted in one university hospital and two public hospitals in Türkiye. Data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews with 21 women who had experienced vaginal birth within the previous year and 20 midwives with labour and delivery experience. Interviews with women were conducted online, whereas interviews with midwives were conducted face-to-face. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analysed using qualitative content analysis. Selected sociodemographic, obstetric, and organisational characteristics were collected descriptively to contextualise the findings. Results: Three interrelated themes were identified: lack of respectful maternity care, women’s emotional needs during childbirth, and systemic constraints affecting midwifery practice. Women described obstetric violence through emotional distress, loss of control, insufficient information, lack of consent, privacy violations, and imposed interventions. Midwives interpreted these experiences in relation to workload, institutional routines, physician-centred decision-making, and limited professional autonomy. Conclusions: Preventing obstetric violence requires improvements in communication, informed consent, privacy, emotional support, and system-level conditions that enable respectful, woman-centred care. Full article

This systematic review explores the multifaceted factors influencing African Australian migrant women’s decisions to remain in family violence relationships. It critically examines how existing service frameworks marginalise women who stay and advocates for culturally safe, trauma-informed, and harm-reduction programs. The study calls for a significant policy and practice shift to recognise diverse survival strategies beyond conventional notions of “leaving”. Guided by a critical realist ontological approach, the review employs thematic analysis of qualitative data to illuminate the complex interplay of social, cultural, legal, and economic factors shaping women’s choices. Findings reveal that current service models, predominantly based on a “leave to be safe” paradigm, fail to address intersecting barriers faced by African Australian migrant women. These include precarious visa status, language barriers, and fear of child removal, which compel many to remain in violent environments. The study highlights the unique challenges posed by insecure migration status, which intensifies family violence and impedes help-seeking behaviours. This review identifies significant structural and intersectional barriers, critical policy gaps and proposes re-envisioning support pathways to better serve women who, for structural and personal reasons, cannot or choose not to leave abusive relationships. It underscores the need for culturally safe, harm-reduction strategies and systemic reforms to dismantle structural inequalities embedded in immigration and family violence responses. Full article

As U.S. immigration policy changes across presidential administrations, it is critical to examine how these changes shape immigrants’ interactions with the legal system. While immigrants are provided basic rights, many lack access to critical protections. This paper employs an inductive thematic analysis of barriers to immigrant survivors’ access to Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) protections, using Colorado as a critical case study. This analysis demonstrates how even substantial state investment and sanctuary commitments are neutralized by federal legal barriers. Analyzed through a feminist lens, this analysis suggests that even in a state committed to immigrant protection, access to VAWA remains constrained in part because federal immigration law contains institutional structures that reproduce gendered power relations. Full article

Background: Between 33% and 75% of women who experience intimate partner violence (IPV) sustain an IPV-related traumatic brain injury (TBI). Although IPV-related TBI is associated with adverse psychosocial outcomes, its impact on response to healthcare-based IPV interventions remains unclear. Methods: Using data from a randomized clinical trial within the Veterans Health Administration, we examined psychosocial outcomes among 60 woman veterans with past-year IPV experiences participating in two brief IPV interventions: Enhanced Care As Usual (ECAU) and Recovering from IPV through Strengths and Empowerment (RISE). Results: At pretreatment, 21 women (35%) reported a history of probable IPV-related TBI. Multilevel modeling revealed no significant main or interaction effects of TBI history for self-efficacy, empowerment, patient activation, depression, physical health symptoms, or resilience. However, there was a significant interaction of time and probable IPV-related TBI history for valued living, such that women with probable IPV-related TBI history demonstrated greater initial gains followed by slight posttreatment decline; F(2, 76.55) = 2.96, p = 0.049. There was also a significant interaction between probable IPV-related TBI history, treatment condition, and pretreatment anxiety symptoms for anxiety symptoms as an outcome, such that women with probable IPV-related TBI history in the RISE condition, who had more severe anxiety symptoms at pretreatment, reported higher anxiety symptoms on average across the study period than women without probable IPV-related TBI history in RISE; F(1, 48) = 5.04, p = 0.029. Furthermore, there was a significant interaction of probable IPV-related TBI history and pretreatment physical health symptoms for physical health symptoms as an outcome, such that women with probable IPV-related TBI histories maintained higher physical symptoms from pretreatment to the last follow-up assessment; F(1, 134) = 8.99, p = 0.004. Conclusions: No evidence of differential treatment response was detected for women with and without probable IPV-related TBI history. Findings related to valued living and anxiety suggest areas where additional support may improve implementation of brief healthcare-based IPV interventions. Full article

Black women faced disproportionate social, emotional, and structural burdens during the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and racial injustice, yet their mental health experiences remain underexamined. This study explores how Black women understood, navigated, and coped with these intersecting crises. Seven Black women in North Carolina participated in a seven-session virtual photovoice study, including four photo discussion sessions. Participants generated four photo assignments, took photos, and discussed them using the SHOWeD framework. Recorded discussions were analyzed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis and Sort and Sift, Think and Shift, with participants supporting theme development. Narratives revealed multi-level mental health impacts: at the individual level, caregiving overload, compounded grief, and constant vigilance; at the interpersonal level, invisibility, racial misreading, and everyday racism that intensified distress and made help-seeking itself a labor of confronting providers’ biases; at the community level, trauma from witnessing racial violence and pandemic loss; and structural factors such as inequity, food insecurity, and policing as primary drivers of mental health strain. Participants employed healing as resistance through faith, nature, sister circles, and culturally concordant care. Black women’s mental health during the dual pandemics is inseparable from structural racism and gendered labor; healing is individual and collective, and crisis preparedness requires system-level change driven by Black communities. Full article

Alcohol consumption is associated with significant social and economic challenges for nations worldwide, including alcohol-related healthcare costs and alcohol-related crime. According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC), even moderate drinking correlates with greater health risks compared with not drinking at all. These health risks include physical harm to a person’s heart, brain, liver, and other organs; impaired social functioning; reduced work performance; and increased incidence of alcohol-related violence and injury (e.g., physical and sexual assault and drunk driving-related injuries and death). Although personal health and social problems are correlated with alcohol consumption across genders, women experience disproportionately worse problems associated with alcohol-related crime and family disruption. At the societal level, alcohol use coincides with substantial negative economic problems, including increased healthcare costs, often covered by the government; reduced worker productivity; and higher criminal justice system costs. This paper applies an econometric analysis to evaluate the association between alcohol consumption and key social and economic factors and suggests actions that business firms, government entities, universities, and other organizations can take to reduce alcohol-related harm, such as encouraging sobriety in the workplace, offering alcohol-related counseling services, and not establishing associations with nor accepting payments of any kind from alcohol beverage companies. The findings have implications for business managers, government leaders, policy-makers, and others. Full article

Workplace sexual harassment is a persistent human rights and public-health problem. This study analyzes in-person, online, and hybrid victimization using microdata from the EU-GBV survey (2021) across 17 countries, applying multilevel logistic models. The official indicator identifies that 31.6% of women have experienced harassment. In-person harassment is prevalent, whereas online victimization disproportionately affects the young cohort (18–34 years). Significant between-country variation is observed, indicating the influence of the national context in shaping risk. Among women under 35, urban environment and country-of-origin dynamics are relevant exposure factors. The findings show high recurrence (57.8%), low formal reporting (1.7%), and insufficient organizational preparedness (23.4% with training available). Digitalization expands the repertoire of violence without displacing its structural foundations. We conclude that there is a need to implement integrated prevention and intervention systems that address hybrid risk through a gender-sensitive perspective and a multivariable multilevel analysis attentive to intersecting axes, with models centered on main effects and the young cohort treated as an analytical stratification. Full article

There is a lack of step-by-step guides for developing evidence-based interventions through close collaboration between researchers and practitioners that emphasize genuine co-creation. The purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed description of the five-year participatory action research- and iterative-design-inspired development process that resulted in a 12-week group-based intervention to support reorientation and post-traumatic growth among intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors. This paper presents a case study based on an analysis of meeting agendas and notes, observations, successive versions of the intervention, and interviews with staff at partnering women’s shelters and female victim-survivor intervention participants, conducted from 2021 to 2025. This study offers future intervention developers three actionable recommendations: (1) invest in relationship building and establish a collaborative project culture characterized by epistemic equality between academic researchers and practitioners, manifested in non-hierarchical decision-making; (2) create a purpose-built framework for genuine collaboration and co-creation, like the one presented in this project, which combines participatory action research and iterative design approaches; and (3) ensure a shared vision and a formalized agreement regarding future uses and rights connected to the intervention. By offering key transferable recommendations, this paper contributes to teams embarking on intervention development alongside end-beneficiaries and community stakeholders in women’s shelters and beyond. Full article

Curriculum-based programs are one of the most common and effective strategies for preventing intimate partner violence (IPV) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Yet relatively little is known about how curricula and their implementation compare across programs, limiting learning and innovation. This scoping review examined the design, content, and implementation of 55 curricula from 42 programs implemented in 23 LMICs between 2001 and 2024. Curricula were identified through screening systematic reviews, grey literature, donor reports, and professional contacts. Data on program characteristics, subject matter, methodologies, and implementation were extracted, synthesized, and analyzed. We found curricula employed similar participatory methodologies and content, and violence, gender, relationships, power, and communication emerged as core topics. Adaptation of earlier programming was widespread: only five curricula did not cite content adapted from an earlier program. Key gaps included the relatively limited use of evidence-based strategies to build relationship skills and content addressing alcohol use and poor mental health, important IPV risk factors. Implementation varied considerably in terms of intensity, frequency, duration, group size, facilitators and their training, and information on some features was sparse. The findings highlight several opportunities for strengthening and innovation, for which we present six recommendations to guide future IPV prevention programming. Full article