Gender-based Abuse: The Global Epidemic 1 -Lori Heise
Domestic Violence
The most pervasive form of gender violence is abuse of women by intimate male partners. Over 30 well-designed surveys are now available from a wide range of countries showing that between one-fifth to over half of women interviewed have been beaten by a male partner (Table 2). The majority of these women are beaten at least three times a year with many experiencing persistent psychological and sexual abuse as well. According to a recent review in the Journal of the American Medical Association, “Women in the United States are more likely to be assaulted and injured, raped or killed by a current or ex-male partner than all other assailants combined” (American Medical Association, 1992). The same could be said of women elsewhere in the world. In Papua New Guinea, 18 percent of all urban wives surveyed had received hospital treatment for injuries inflicted by their husbands (Toft, 1986). In Alexandria, Egypt, domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women, accounting for 28 percent of all visits to area trauma units (Graitcer, 1994). And in countries as diverse as Brazil, Israel, Canada, and Papua New Guinea, over half of all women murdered are killed by a current or former partner (Heise et al., 1994).