Publication: Violence Against Women and Girls : Health Sector Brief
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2015-04
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2015-01-05
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Violence against women and girls (VAWG) has negative impacts on physical and mental health. Health care settings provide a unique opportunity to identify VAWG survivors, provide critical support services, and prevent future harm. VAWG has intergenerational effects: boys who witness intimate partner violence (IPV) at home are more likely to grow up to perpetrate violence themselves. And girls with childhood exposure to IPV are more likely to experience violence in later relationships. The health sector can play a role in educating clients and the broader community about VAWG as a human rights violation and major public health issue.
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“Gennari, Floriza; McCleary-Sills, Jennifer; Arango, Diana; Hidalgo, Nidia. 2015. Violence Against Women and Girls : Health Sector Brief. © http://hdl.handle.net/10986/21092 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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Poor women and men are more afflicted with RH problems and often lack access to minimal RH care even when average levels of RH in the country are good. Many RH problems are most cost-effectively managed by prevention - serious problems are costly and very difficult to solve once manifest. This article covers the types of interventions needed to sustain reproductive health including increasing girls' education, preventing and managing sexually transmitted disease, providing contraception to avoid abortion, improving pre-natal and delivery care, increasing the number of skilled providers of health care, post-abortion care, bolstering maternal health services, and reducing practices that increase reproductive health risks such as unsafe sex, female genital mutilation, and domestic violence.
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