Book Description
Gender-based violence has a direct impact on a range of women's reproductive health problems, including adolescent pregnancy, high-risk sexual behavior, sexually transmitted diseases, neonatal and maternal mortality, and chronic pelvic pain. To facilitate integration of these two areas, the Population Council's Ebert Program on Critical Issues in Reproductive Health and the Health and Development Policy Project met together in November 1993. It has been demonstrated that women who have been sexually abused as children are at increased risk of early initiation of intercourse, multiple partners, unprotected sex, prostitution, drug and alcohol abuse, depression, and low self-esteem. Although most societies condemn incest and forced intercourse with an unmarried virgin, coerced sex within marriage or with a sexually experienced woman may be tolerated. The general paucity of research on coerced sex reflects the more general avoidance of issues of gender and power. Seminar participants identified six priority areas for research: sociocultural contexts that shape and support sexual coercion; the integration of questions on sexual violence into ongoing research on AIDS, sexuality, and reproductive health in order to gain prevalence data; the cultural meanings attached to sexual trauma; the physical and psychological consequences of sexual coercion; processes within the criminal justice, legal, media, and medical care systems that perpetuate sexual victimization; and effective interventions.
