Violence against women is widely recognised as a violation of human rights and a public health problem. The most common forms of violence against women are domestic abuse and sexual violence, and victimisation is associated with an increased risk of mental disorders. It is reported that a three times increase in the likelihood of depressive disorders, a four times increase in the likelihood of anxiety disorders, and a seven times increase in the likelihood of post-traumatic disorder (PTSD) for women who have experienced domestic violence and abuse. Significant associations between intimate partner violence and symptoms of psychosis, substance misuse, and eating disorders have also been reported. Furthermore, systematic reviews of predominantly cross-sectional studies report consistent relationships between being a victim of domestic violence and abuse and having mental disorders across the diagnostic spectrum for men and women, but since women are more likely to be victims, the population attributable fractions are higher for women. In this presentation, the focus will also be on clinical guidance on the role of mental health professionals in identifying violence against women and responding appropriately, poor identification persists and can lead to non-engagement with services and poor response to treatment. After a literature review, we will present and discuss current data from parental consultation and a survey on violence during the Covid-19 pandemic in Berlin.

An analysis of the African Union approach to eliminating violence against women shows that while the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa (the Maputo Protocol) refined the culture/violence nexus, the subsequent regional frameworks reverted to culture-centered explanations. Tornius’s critical analysis reveals how the relationship between culture and gender discourses has changed over time, entangled with processes of colonialism, decolonization, emergence of African socialisms, the end of the Cold War, and the advent of African feminisms. Articulating gendered violence through undefined ahistorical and apolitical notions of “culture” has real life adverse effects for women through ineffective policy and development interventions.

Le contrôle excessif est considéré par différents organismes communautaires et institutions du Québec comme une des représentations des violences basées sur l’honneur (VBH) au même titre que les mariages forcés, les mutilations génitales féminines (MGF) et les violences physiques ou psychologiques. En 2016, pour la première fois, le législateur québécois a ajouté le contrôle excessif à la liste des mauvais traitements psychologiques explicitement reconnus par la Loi sur la protection de la jeunesse (LPJ). Toutefois, aucune définition juridique, jurisprudentielle, politique ou même doctrinale du contrôle excessif n’accompagne cette reconnaissance juridique. Pourtant, il existe, sur le terrain et dans différentes décisions judiciaires, des situations où l’existence du contrôle excessif est reconnue par divers intervenants du système. L’objectif du présent article est d’appréhender le phénomène du contrôle excessif à partir, d’abord, d’un examen doctrinal et juridique, autant fédéral que provincial, concernant les VBH en général, et ensuite, d’une analyse jurisprudentielle des décisions de la Chambre de la Jeunesse de la Cour du Québec associées particulièrement au contrôle excessif. Le tout permettra de proposer une définition du contrôle excessif dans le contexte des VBH, dans le but de mieux identifier cette violence intrafamiliale spécifique et de mieux intervenir auprès des victimes et de leur famille.

We know more about why laws on violence against women (vaw) were adopted than about how much and in what ways these laws affect society. The authors argue that even weakly enforced laws can contribute to positive social change. They theorize the expressive power of vaw legislation, and present evidence for a cautiously optimistic assessment of current trends on violence against women and the ways that vaw laws affect social norms. Focusing on a time of major legal change related to vaw in Mexico, this article explores trends in behavior and attitudes related to violence by analyzing four waves of the National Survey on the Dynamics of Household Relations (endireh), which include detailed interviews with thousands of Mexican women. The authors find that over this period, the share of women experiencing intimate-partner abuse declined, attitudes condoning violence shifted, reporting rates rose, and most women learned about legislation to protect their rights. These changes are consistent with the authors’ expectations about the expressive power of anti-violence legislation.

A scholarly consensus depicts strong, autonomous domestic women's movements as critical for the passage of gender equality reforms, alongside openings in domestic and international political contexts. What, then, is a nascent women's movement seeking gender equality reforms to do if it lacks strength or a history of autonomous organizing? A long-term analysis of the Guatemalan women's movement's push for reforms to address violence against women demonstrates that one potential road forward is through a “politics of patience,” rooted in the pursuit of cumulative, incremental victories. Adopting a politics of patience allows nascent domestic movements in developing and post-transition contexts to achieve incremental victories that create future political openings while simultaneously building movement strength and autonomy over time. This finding highlights the temporal and strategic power of women's movements, as well as the iterative and potentially reinforcing nature of social mobilization and political reform.

We explore how formal mandates associated with Guatemala's 2008 ‘Law against Femicide and Other Forms of Violence against Women’ and with specialised violence against women (VAW) courts have encountered significant challenges due to state-imposed constraints. Drawing on courtroom observations, analyses of case files, and interviews, we find that while formal mandates incorporated feminist understandings of violence against women, which were often internalised among court officials, in daily practice specialised courts reproduced tendencies to depict violence as interpersonal, fragment people's experiences and enact narrow forms of justice that do not incorporate the full intent of the 2008 VAW Law and institutions intended to support it. This case study thus illuminates how and why legal solutions alone are not sufficient to reduce gender-based violence and feminicide, particularly in the face of uneven and openly hostile challenges posed by governments.

The treatment of third-country nationals (TCNs) under EU law falls far short of the EU's commitments to eliminate gender inequality and to ‘combat all kinds of domestic violence’. Not only does Article 13(2)(c) of the EU Citizens’ Directive, as interpreted by the CJEU in Secretary of State for the Home Department v NA, fail to ‘safeguard’ the rights of TCNs, it may also enable domestic violence. When presented with an opportunity to remedy its disadvantageous treatment of TCNs by fully ratifying the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combatting Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (the Istanbul Convention), the Council of the EU chose instead to pursue a selective and partial ratification which leaves TCN victims without recourse to the very provisions designed to assist them. The European Parliament stated that it ‘regrets’ this approach, recommending instead ‘a broad EU accession … without any limitations’. This article's analysis of the EU Citizens’ Directive and Istanbul Convention supports this recommendation.

Tackling violence against women in the theatre is often a controversial matter. To identify the ethical risks that victim representation may entail, we conduct a comparative analysis of two works about Ciudad Juárez’s feminicides staged in Barcelona: 2666 (2007), an adaptation of Roberto Bolaño’s novel directed by Àlex Rigola, and House of Strength (2011) by Angélica Liddell. This article argues that while Rigola reduces victims to mere sexual objects with no narrative of their own, Liddell places the voice and resilience of Mexicans in the foreground and represents their bodies respectfully. Adriana Nicolau is completing her doctoral studies on ‘Feminisms in contemporary Catalan theatre’ at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) in Barcelona. Her publications include articles for Feminismo/s. Teresa Iribarren is an assistant professor at UOC, where she is the Director of the Catalan Literature, Publishing, and Society research group. Her current research focuses on narratives of violence and the promotion of human rights in literature.

What does world peace mean? Peace is more than the absence and prevention of war, whether international or civil, yet most of our ways of conceptualizing and measuring peace amount to just that definition. In this essay, as part of the roundtable “World Peace (And How We Can Achieve It),” I argue that any vision of world peace must grapple not only with war but with the continuums of violence and peace emphasized by feminists: running from the home and community to the public spaces of international relations. Breaking free of the constraints of the last century's intellectual boundaries, I suggest that war and peace are not a dichotomy but rather are intimately related. Yet the dearth of feminist perspectives in global debates prevents us from seeing how violence and harm are exacerbated in households and through the global economy under conditions of both “war” and “peace.” To understand the possibilities for world peace, we must understand these varieties of violence and harm that threaten peace. And to sustain peace we must address the harmful gendered identities, ideologies, and social dynamics that support violence in every society. A narrow understanding of peace as merely the absence of organized violence does not engender the kind of nuanced and rich understanding of human history and human relations needed to bring an end to the structural and physical violence that remains pervasive worldwide.