Women and Violence: Realities and Responses Worldwide - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1856491463 ISBN 13: 9781856491464

Publisher: Zed Books, 1994

Synopsis

This international anthology highlights the problems of violence against women through the experiences and analyses of individual women and groups from over 30 countries, as diverse as Papua New Guinea, Argentina, Tanzania, France, India, the USA, Scotland, Czechoslovakia and Tibet. Broadly divided by theme, the book explores domestic violence and child sexual abuse, sexual harassment in the workplace, women and torture, genital mutilation and the effects of male violence on women's reproductive health. It also looks at efforts initiated by women to find solutions, examining schemes such as the introduction of women's police stations in Brazil and Pakistan, strategies to change the law in the USA and Bangladesh, and the value of popular education projects in Canada, Jamaica and Australia.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Violence against women is a global problem. Over the past twenty years women have campaigned vigorously against abuses such as wife-beating, rape and sexual harassment. More recently, persistent lobbying by feminists from both North and South has succeeded in establishing official international recognition of gender-based violence as a fundamental violation of human rights. Yet throughout the world it remains very much a hidden problem, the scale of which is vastly underestimated everywhere. This book highlights the extent of the problem through the experiences and analysis of individual women and groups from over 30 countries as diverse as Papua New Guinea, Argentina, Tanzania, France, Scotland, Bosnia, India, and Tibet. Broadly divided by theme, their writings examine the incidence of domestic violence and child sexual abuse, sexual harassment in the workplace, rape and torture in war, genital mutilation, and the effects of male violence on women's reproductive health. But this is also a positive and inspiring book. The pieces are illustrated throughout by a collection of cartoons and posters which attests to the wealth of activity generated by grassroots women's organizations throughout the world. The authors assess the efforts being made worldwide to find solutions, such as the introduction of women's police stations in Brazil and Pakistan, strategies to change the law in the USA and Bangladesh, and population education projects in Canada, Jamaica, and Australia.

About the Author

Miranda Davies is a writer and editor with a longstanding interest in gender, development and human rights. She has worked as a freelance writer and editor for numerous organisations, including Isis International Women's Network, the Central America Committee for Human Rights, Virago, Channel Four, the Rough Guides, Sort Of Books and the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF). Miranda has been a book editor and Managing Editor of BAAF's peer-reviewed quarterly journal, Adoption & Fostering, since 1996. This job sparked an interest in child welfare, especially the needs and rights of children separated from their families of origin. Some of the similarities with intercountry adoption in turn gave rise to a fascination with reproductive tourism and the many ethical and other implications of the current boom in commercial surrogacy. In August 2014, Miranda attended a three-day International Forum on Intercountry Adoption & Global Surrogacy organised by International Social Services (ISS) in The Hague, where she met many of the potential contributors to the proposed anthology. Miranda has two grown-up daughters and lives in London.

About this edition

• Publisher: Zed Books
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 1856491463
• ISBN 13: 9781856491464
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272
• Editor: Davies Miranda