Violence against ​Women: An International Perspective 

by Marg Schuler (pages 1-45 of the book) 
Gender Violence and the Women's Agenda Worldwide
Gender violence is a pervasive and prevalent problem worldwide, touching all aspects of women's lives—from the home, to the workplace, to the street. Although systematic efforts to understand the nature and global extent of violence against women are recent, activism and theory building on gender violence are in a period of rapid development. Every year, and from every corner of the world, new books and studies appear, conferences are convened, and innovative projects emerge: all aimed at understanding gender violence and advancing strategies to confront it. The 1990 ISIS International Bibliographic Survey of documentation on vio­lence against women in the 1980s identified some 650 entries from around the world. Three hundred and fifty were from Latin America and the Caribbean alone. Despite this momen­tum, no definitive frameworks have yet emerged for concep­tualizing gender violence and how to prevent it—and proba­bly never will, given the dynamic nature of the process. However, the debate among researchers and activists has already contributed significantly to a political resolve to elim­inate structural violence in women's lives and to formulate workable strategies to achieve this goal.
The Discovery of Violence Against Women
The discovery of gender violence and its establishment as an important component of the women's agenda took different paths in different parts of the world. In general, it emerged in the context of activism and research on issues related to the social status of women and their right to participation. The discovery of violence against women as a major issue in Europe and North America coincided with the early stages of feminist theory development. In other parts of the world the convergence of development, human rights, and feminist praxis produced the framework for discovering the nature, forms, extent and pernicious effects of violence against women.
In Europe and North America, stimulus for the growth of the feminist movement during the 1960s and 1970s was the discovery of rape as a phenomenon affecting large numbers of women (Griffin, 1979). Organized action to raise public awareness about rape, change laws and police procedures, and provide services to rape victims contributed to and rein­forced the emerging contours of feminist thought. Discernment of violence as an instrument to control female sexuality became a powerful tool for understanding the mechanisms sustaining violence and framing strategies to undermine it. During this period, the groundwork was set for subsequent initiatives to combat violence against women in Europe, North America and elsewhere.
In other parts of the world, it was the United Nations' Decade for Women (1975 to 1985) that became the primary catalyst for discovering gender violence. For the first time ever, researchers seriously studied women's roles and their contribution to socioeconomic development processes. Ester Boserup's (1972) ground-breaking research on women in African agriculture, and other studies throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America (Bourque & Warren, 1979; Acharya & Bennett, 1981; Staudt & Jaquette, 1983), made it apparent that women's participation was more important to development than was previously conceded. The studies also revealed that despite women's economic contribution, development plan­ners neglected women at both the national and international levels. The studies concluded that women would have to be taken seriously in planning and programming if true socioe­conomic development were to take place in a society.
During the Women's Decade, "women in development" (WID) became a legitimate focus of research and action.

International development agencies, local NGO's, and women generally discovered a new role: not only were women mothers and wives, but producers as well. WID ini­tiatives by international development organizations and women's groups in many countries focused their efforts on improving women's status by making women's productive role more effective and functional. WID issues were high on the agenda of both the Inter-governmental and the Non-gov­ernmental Conferences in Copenhagen (1980) and Nairobi (1985). Most of the NGO participants who converged on those two cities to debate the Decade's themes of equality, develop­ment and peace, primarily explored ways to increase women's productive participation and socioeconomic advantage.
By the mid 1980s, however, the initial euphoria about the beneficial effects of "incorporating women into development" became tempered by the recognition that despite higher rates of participation, women's potential would continue to be thwarted by their subordinate status and low social value. The disappointing results of programs to overcome constraints to women's economic participation forced many to revise their analysis of the roots of women's marginalization. The impact of the lack of economic resources was analyzed from a new perspective. Realizing the importance of understanding the underpinnings of female subordination—legal, cultural, polit­ical and economic—women began to develop new analytical perspectives and the skills needed to mobilize economic and political resources, to expand and assert rights, and to redress injustices.
During the Decade, the feminist movement had taken off in a dramatic way throughout the Third World. This was also a period of expansion for human rights activism in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Fueled by outrage at the brutality of military coups and dictatorships in most of the regions, ordinary citizens participated in building a consensus about fundamental rights, removing them from the specialized agenda of human rights and advocacy organizations. Initiatives aimed at the expansion and protection of rights of the most vulnerable sectors of society, including women, were developing everywhere, and women's advocacy work made its appearance. By the late 1970s, reports of the first mobilizations of the women's movement in India to raise awareness about "dowry deaths" and to press for new laws and police proce­dures reached the major news media throughout the world. In response to military brutality in Chile, Argentina and Brazil, women were in the front lines of the political challenge to repression. In the process they detected and responded to the oppression in their own lives by shaping a new feminist political agenda (Jaquette, 1987; Kirkwood, 1985).
Asian, African, and Latin American feminists drew their inspiration from theories they perceived to be relevant to their experiences—experiences often seasoned by living within violent and politically repressive societies. Understanding the psychosocial effects of violence in the home and in society, feminist insights about women's status combined the cate­gories of gender, class and race to offer new explanations about how social structures subordinate women.
Curiously, the 1980 Mid-Decade Conference in Copenhagen had few sessions focused on violence, however the official report of the meeting explicitly mentioned the problem of vio­lence in the home (United Nations, 1980). Five years later at the 1985 Nairobi meeting (the last of the "Decade" confer­ences) violence was on the agenda, although not yet on the same scale as other development issues. Most of the initia­tives dealing specifically with violence were new, experimen­tal and unevaluated, and therefore did not attract wide atten­tion. Also, many participants were still resistant to the idea that violence should be considered relevant to development policy.
Beginning with the Nairobi Conference, however, many national and international bodies began to take up the issue of violence against women. At the intergovernmental level, one significant event was the UN meeting on violence in the family held in Vienna in 1986. The UN Publication, Violence Against Women in the Family (United Nations, 1989) notes that approval by the U.N. General Assembly of Resolution 40/36 of 29 November 1985 recognizing the importance of violence in the home was a milestone. This resolution advocated "con­certed and multi-disciplinary action," both within and out­side the United Nations system, to deal with the problem. It also urged governments to adopt specific criminal legislation to obtain an equitable and human response from judicial sys­tems to the victimization of women. The resolution marked the recognition by inter-governmental bodies that violence against women is an issue affecting all countries and all cul­tures and should be a priority for national and international action.
At the nongovernmental level, groups and organizations throughout the third world had already begun to comprehend the problem and seek means within their own countries to address it. In Latin America newly formed, overtly feminist collectives in Peru, Mexico, Brazil and other countries responded militantly to the new awareness of the problem of male violence toward women by opening service centers to attend to the problems of battered and abused women. In Asian countries such as the Philippines, Thailand, India and others trade unions, grassroots groups, and development organizations began to incorporate into their established agendas programmatic components dealing with the issue of violence and expand their ideas of the causes of women's dis- empowerment. Many groups took on culturally specific forms of violence such as dowry murders in India, forced steriliza­tion in Puerto Rico, and female circumcision in Africa, using strategies considered culturally appropriate and feasible in their context.
Networks and Coalitions on Violence
Many factors contributed to the recognition that violence against women should be a priority for action. Networking and exchange among those active in the field of women's rights was an important tool for diffusion of ideas and strate­gy development. In North America and Europe, where work on rape led to developing responses to domestic violence, new approaches and models surfaced in many and disparate geographical locations. The regional and national coalitions formed from among those working on wife battering and other varieties of abuse became important sources of inspira­tion for clarifying theory and shaping strategies. Coalitions and networks based in Europe and North America tended to be more specialized—concentrating on one form of violence such as rape—than those in the Third World where groups often coalesced to work on a variety of issues simultaneously.
At the international level, several initiatives played a promi­nent role in linking women activists in the field and in promot­ing awareness about violence against women and its connec­tion to development. The First International Tribune on Crimes Against Women in 1976 brought two thousand women together in Brussels from forty countries to testify on crimes against women. In 1984 the "Global Feminist Workshop to Organize Against Traffic in Women" (Barry, Bunch, Castley, 1984) was significant in bringing global attention to the problems of traf­ficking, forced prostitution, and other forms of sexual slavery. The "Third World Forum on Women, Law and Development" (WLD) (Schuler, 1986) also played a catalytic role internation­ally, sparking efforts to clarify strategies related to gender vio­lence. At the NGO Forum in Nairobi, the WLD Forum brought together women from around the globe to assess strategies that used the law to improve the status of women in the Third World. Recognizing the urgent need for new and more effec­tive efforts to be developed, the participants called for the role of law to be clarified, particularly its use as a tool for improv­ing the status of women in its social, economic and political dimensions.
Inspired by the dynamism of the debate at the Nairobi WLD meeting, regional organizations subsequently formed in Asia, Africa and Latin America to promote and defend
women's rights. The Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD), The Latin American Committee for the Defense of Women's Rights (CLADEM), and Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF) became autonomous vehicles for continuing dialogue and coopera­tive action at regional and international levels. These regional networks and their programs institutionalized a collective and continuing "forum" for exchanging and disseminating information, sharing strategies on the defense and promotion of women's rights, and developing mechanisms for coordina­tion. Research on gender and violence, access to justice, human rights, and other related issues provide the basis for designing campaigns for promoting women's rights in all the regions. Other activities target legislative reform, public edu­cation, legal literacy, and litigation on test cases.
Combatting gender violence has been in the forefront of these and other international efforts. At the first interregional meeting of APWLD, CLADEM, and APWLD (Schuler, 1989) all three regional organizations agreed to work on the com­mon theme of violence against women by deepening their analyses of the issue and refining their strategies for con­fronting the problem in its various manifestations. As a result, over the past couple of years, each region has undertaken a variety of research and action activities on violence against women, including workshops, conferences, publications, and the formation of task forces to work on strategy development and coordination.1
Among other recent networking efforts is the dialogue ini­tiated by Match International in 1988 between women in Canada and the Third World to develop a global perspective on violence and encourage women to seek community based alternatives to violence. In 1990, two major initiatives created forums for bringing together women working to combat gen­der violence. In May the Global Fund for Women convened an international forum, "Leading the Way Out," with activists working principally on domestic violence through shelters and crisis centers. In June the Center for Women's Global Leadership held its first institute on women and violence at Rutgers University and pledged to focus on this issue for the next three years. Another significant contribution to work on violence is the ISIS International Bibliographic Survey on gen­der violence published in 1990. Each of these networking and exchange efforts signal the importance of sharing information and forging linkages across national boundaries in the strug­gle to end violence against women. As a consequence of these initiatives, gender violence today is taking its place as the major issue around which women are organizing. Acknowledged to be a commonplace phenomenon in every culture and every geographical setting, gender violence has become a priority issue for women worldwide.
Developing Frameworks and Models Rooted in Experience
Inseparably linked to the priority of overcoming violence against women is the urgency of designing and carrying out effective action strategies. As the pervasiveness of violence against women in its various manifestations has unfolded, a sense of urgency in finding effective means to confront violence has also increased. The case studies in this volume are about the process of building and refining these strategies. They show how experiences in confronting gender violence from different cultures and settings cumulatively contribute to shaping a framework for advocacy work on gender violence and defining an initial set of categories and criteria for creat­ing and critiquing strategies.
There are two major sources of inspiration for strategy development. First, strategies commonly develop as concrete responses to urgently perceived needs. For example, estab­lishment of shelters in the U.S. responded to activists' con­cerns about the battered woman's vulnerability and urgent need for protection. Later, frustrated by the unresponsiveness of the justice system to the battered woman's situation, activists turned toward a structural approach and focused on making the police and the judiciary responsive to the crime of wife battery (Heise & Chapman).2 In India, the Supreme Court's judgement on a specific case in 1979 mobilized the women's movement to initiate its campaign against rape, using an approach that targeted various sectors: the media, the legislative body, the police, the public. Awareness of the number of women killed for delivering insufficient dowry prompted women organizers to convene mass awareness­raising demonstrations; to hold protests against police treat­ment of cases; and even to maintain vigils in front of the homes of the husbands, in-laws and other alleged perpetra­tors in specific dowry-murder cases (Kelkar).
Second, strategies build on ideas and models rooted in other contexts and other experiences. Many early shelters established in the Third World derived inspiration from European and North American experiences. The practice of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police proved useful in training Malaysian police in evidence collecting techniques (Fernandez). In Bolivia (Montano), reform of the rape laws benefitted from the successes and shortcomings of rape reform initiatives adopted in other countries. In Africa, female circumcision is beginning to be regarded as an act of violence toward women, and not solely as a health problem, as a result of developments in conceptualizing gender vio­lence and an ongoing Pan-African dialogue among women affected by this practice about how to approach the problem.
The dynamic interaction of these two streams of inspira­tion—perceived exigencies of a particular context and models developed elsewhere—is a thread that runs throughout this volume. Generally, strategies derived from one source alone prove lacking. The use of models as "recipes" without regard to local realities produce inappropriate, incoherent, and there­fore risky paradigms, while learning totally from experience is tedious, wasteful, and ineffective. Each case study in this book provides a mix of external and internal inputs for the design of specific strategies. In one way or another, the two aspects are present in all of the cases, although the setting and the forms of gender violence targeted differ from case to case.
Treating the subject of gender violence on an international scale, however, does pose a certain challenge. Whether the terms of the dialogue are within a "North/South" or "South/South" framework, learning from, not just about, the efforts of women in different parts of the world to confront violence requires a special attitude of mind. While domestic violence and rape have become recognized as almost univer­sal forms of abuse, other categories and practices such as sati3, bride burning4, trafficking in women, female circumcision5, female feticide6, and infanticide remain associated with par­ticular cultures or regions of the world. Given such distinc­tive patterns, it is crucial to avoid thinking that there are no lessons to be learned from efforts to combat exotic forms of violence different from those present in one's own reality. Nor is any form of violence so distinctive or so pervasive that experiences from other, presumably more (or less) violent societies, are irrelevant. Only by understanding the common thread that runs through all forms of violence against women in all contexts, can attention to either "ordinary" or "exotic" forms lead to insights about ways to alter the patterns of vio­lence directed toward women. In fact, by any name, and in any culture, abuse of women is the issue—and the causes and consequences are similar.
This book does not present a single "correct" strategy. Indeed, issues and circumstances delimit what is appropriate and possible to undertake. However, it does share some insights about approaches taken to combat gender violence in various parts of the world, about the sources of inspiration of the work, about common threads of agreement over the nature of gender violence, about the lessons learned through experience, and about the elements that are beginning to form a framework for the design and critique of strategies to combat violence against women. In sharing these insights from the case studies includ­ed, the book is intended to be a resource, offering tools and guidance in the task of building strategies.

Defining the Problem:
Gender Violence
At its most basic and obvious level, violence is "an act car­ried out with the intention or perceived intention of physical­ly hurting another person" (Gelles and Straus, 1979). Adding the gender dimension to that definition amplifies it to include violent acts perpetrated on women because they are women. With this addition, however, the definition is no longer sim­ple or obvious: understanding the phenomenon of gender violence requires an analysis of the patterns of violence directed toward women and the underlying mechanisms that permit the emergence and perpetuation of these patterns.
Coomaraswamy's article in this volume points out that women are vulnerable to various forms of violent treatment for several reasons, all based on gender.

1. Because of being female, a woman is subject to rape, female circumcision/genital mutilation, female infanti­cide, and sex-related crimes. This reason relates to soci­ety's construction of female sexuality and its role in social hierarchy.
2. Because of her relationship to a man, a woman is vulnera­ble to domestic violence, dowry murder, sati. This reason relates to society's concept of a woman as the property and dependent of a male protector, father, husband, son, etc.
3. Because of the social group to which she belongs, in times of war, riots, or ethnic, caste, or class violence, a woman may be raped and brutalized as a means of humiliating the community to which she belongs. This also relates to male perception of female sexuality and women as the property of men.

Central to this analysis are the issues of power and gender relations. As Kelkar (India), Haleem (Sudan), Stewart (Zimbabwe), Jilani (Pakistan), Montano (Bolivia), Gonzalez (Chile), and others in this book point out, gender violence is embedded in the context of cultural, socioeconomic, and political power relations. These relations, in which male power dominates, reduce women to economic and emotional dependency, the property of some male protector. Societies organized around gendered, hierarchical power relations give legitimacy to violence against women. In such societies gen­der violence takes shape not only as physical abuse, but as emotional abuse through threats and reprisals, as exploita­tion, as discrimination, and other forms of control and coer­cion (Kelkar).
Based on this analysis, many activists have come to accept as a definition of gender violence "any act involving use of force or coercion with an intent of perpetuating/promoting hierarchical gender relations" (APWLD, 1990). The strength of this definition is that it highlights the role of patriarchy in perpetuating violence, but the breadth of the definition is its limitation. While it is important to identify the causes and consequences of violence, it is equally important to specify the acts that constitute violence. The challenge is to move beyond current, narrow concepts that veil the reality of gen­der-motivated violence without making the word "violence" so broad it encompasses every violation of women's rights. To do so would dilute the explanatory power of the term "gender violence." At the very least, what is needed is a func­tional term to designate those types of violations that involve violent, coercive force, endangering the life or the physical and psychological integrity of women. It is also necessary to expand the notions of civil rights and human rights to incor­porate gender violence as a recognizable and functional cate­gory.
For the purposes of this book, which focuses on strategies to combat gender violence, there are four major categories of interest:

1. Overt physical abuse (battering, sexual assault, at home and in the workplace).
2. Psychological abuse (confinement, forced marriage).
3. Deprivation of resources for physical and psychological well being (health/nutrition, education, means of livelihood).
4. Commodification of women (trafficking, prostitution).

Combining these types of abuse with the concept of hierar­chical gender relations, a useful way to view gender violence is by identifying where the violence toward women occurs. Essentially, violence happens in three contexts—the family, the community, and the state—and at each point key social institutions fulfill critical and interactive functions in defin­ing, legitimating and maintaining the violence.

1. The family socializes its members to accept hierarchical relations expressed in unequal division of labor between the sexes and power over the allocation of resources.
2. The community (i.e., social, economic, religious, and cul­tural institutions) provides the mechanisms for perpetu­ating male control over women's sexuality, mobility and labor.
3. The state legitimizes the proprietary rights of men over women, providing a legal basis to the family and the com­munity to perpetuate these relations. The state does this through the enactment of discriminatory laws and poli­cies or through the discriminatory application of the law.

Taken together—the family, the "community," (as defined above), and the state—constitute not only a pervasive and interactive system for legitimizing violence, but the locus of acts of violence as well. The chart on page 14 outlines the manifestations of gender violence using this framework.

The Family
The family is a major site of violence. A female is vulnera­ble even from before birth as sex-determination tests now pro­vide the means to selectively abort the female fetus. During childhood she is often deprived of food and medical care in favor of her male siblings, while her mother is systematically disciplined, through beatings, to fulfill her domestic duties toward husband and family. Amartya Sen's 1990 essay, "More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing," revealed that due to a complex interaction of cultural and economic dynamics, played out largely through decisions made in the home against the well-being of females, there are in fact regions in the world where the ratio of women to men is dramatically unbalanced. The incidence of incest and sexual abuse within the family in industrialized countries belies the assumption that advanced economic development is key to reducing unfair treatment of women. Overt control of a woman's sexu­ality, through either forced pregnancy or forced abortion by the male, is another form of gender violence perpetrated within the family. Finally, emotional abuse is a category that affects countless women: whether through threats of reprisals for failing to conform to expected behavioral norms; through confinement (at times reaching the point of false imprison­ment); or through forced marriages, those arranged by the family and carried out without the consent of the "bride." The increased incidence of suicide by women unable to cope with of their situation is another facet of the hopelessness resulting from gender violence in the home. 7

The Community
Moving to the level of the "community," the social, cultural, religious, ethnic, or racial reference groups—those from which people derive their sense of identity and key values—play a critical role in reinforcing the structure of the family and the position of women within it. Beyond defining gender relations within the ideal family, and thereby often setting the stage for female subordination, the social reference group can also per­petrate certain forms of violence. Female circumcision (more accurately described as genital mutilation) occurs not only with the moral support of the cultural community, but by per­sons regarded as agents of the community, such as local heal­ers or midwives. Witch burning, sati, punishment for extra­marital sex—including rape—and other forms of physical chastisement are among additional practices of gender vio­lence perpetrated toward women in the name of preserving ethnic or religious integrity. Finally, rape and punishment of female members of "enemy" groups are forms of gender vio­lence used today in many regions of the world where ethnic conflicts are on the rise.
The workplace, either in the formal or informal sectors, is another locus of violence against women. Harassment and sexual coercion are commonly tolerated in factories and offices throughout the world, and there are other forms of vio­lence against women practiced there, which relate to women's vulnerable status in the work force. The informal sector also places women at risk of violence, due to the isolation of the women workers and their lack of legal protection. Legal guar­antees of safety, at least nominally available to formal sector workers, are totally inaccessible to them. The epitome of workplace violence against women, however, occurs through the commercialization of women's sexuality in organized prostitution and trafficking in women.
Finally, at the level of the "community," the communica­tions media play a role in perpetrating violence against women through overt pornography, or graphic expressions of female sexual subjugation through violence, through exploitative reporting of rape and other degrading injuries, and through portrayals of the female body as a commodity to be bought and sold. The function of the media in sustaining patriarchal values is of critical importance, but specific vio­lent acts may also be attributed to the media when they con­done or incite gender violence.
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The State
The third location of gender violence is at the level of the state itself, although state culpability is difficult to categorize. Although state responsibility for the behavior of military offi­cers who violate the human rights of prisoners is firmly ensconced in human rights law and practice, establishing state accountability in gender violence is elusive since most states consider acts of violence toward women to be "private" in nature and carried out by nonstate agents. Rape and torture of women in detention by their custodians is the most obvious situation in which the state can be identified as a direct agent of gender violence. Overt government policies, such as forced sterilization or experimentation on women with unsafe drugs, are also examples of state-sponsored gender violence. Finally, the state's culpability in perpetuating violence through omis­sion, that is, by failing to take appropriate measures to protect vulnerable women, is becoming increasingly evident. Under this concept, the state becomes blameworthy by not passing or enforcing appropriate laws and policies to protect women from, for example, battery in the home. The state is also guilty of condoning violence when it when it accepts the "honor defense"8 and grants men impunity for violence in cases where they murder their wives or lovers. Thus, the state is not just a locus of violence, but under certain circumstances, the perpe­trator as well.
The idea of "agency" in the perpetration of gender violence is important, not just at the level of the state, but at other levels also. Violence in the family is not only located in the family, but members of the family carry out the violence. Violence in the community occurs within institutions that are not just the set­ting for violence, but also the agents of the violence. For exam­ple, acts of witch burning, whether in the historical cases of colonial Massachusetts or in the contemporary occurrence in the Indian State of Bihar, do not just happen in the community. Members of the community are the ones who carry out the violent acts. Whether or not the actual perpetrators receive "official" authorization is irrelevant: the community (reli­gious/ political, etc.) provides the justification for their behav­ior. Similarly, economic enterprises are responsible when— either by design or by neglect—they permit sexual intimidation of women workers and benefit from the submissive and docile behavior of their female employees.

Caveats and Insights
Explaining gender violence in terms of hierarchical gender relations and summarizing its manifestations in schematic form carry certain risks: oversimplifying and universalizing the problem. Violence does not occur in every family or in every culture to the same degree, and the many nuances to the causes of violence in specific cases and contexts must be recognized. Despite that caveat, the framework of unequal gender relations provides a structured way to conceptualize the issues without disregarding additional explanatory cate­gories. There is merit in the thesis that violence is a learned behavior. Similarly, the notions that some subcultures devel­op more dominant patterns of physical violence than others, and that alcohol and stress resulting from poverty or other causes exacerbate the problem of gender violence, should not be dismissed. The case studies in this book supply evidence to this effect.
Recent empirical research findings on gender violence vali­date the use of "unequal gender relations" as an analytical framework and provide additional theoretical insight. One notable study is Levinson's Family Violence in Cross-Cultural Perspective (1989). Its comparative and statistical analysis of ethnographic data on ninety societies throughout the world found that wife beating was present in seventy-five of the ninety. Most significantly, the analysis yielded four cultural factors that taken together are strong predictors of wife abuse. They include sexual economic inequality, a pattern of using physical violence for conflict resolution, male authority and decision-making in the home, and divorce restrictions for women. The study suggests that female economic inequality is the strongest factor, strengthened by male control in the household and the wife's inability to divorce. In effect, women are most vulnerable to violent actions the more total their dependence on men. When their freedom is restricted and they have no options for escape, women are more likely to be abused by their husbands or male authority figures.
In testing this hypothesis, Levinson found one society, the Central Thai, where none of these patterns were present and wife abuse was not a problem. Here nonsexual division of labor was the norm: men as likely as women would carry out household duties including child rearing tasks, and women as likely as men would farm or carry out the family economic enterprise. Divorce was common, people preferring to sepa­rate than to live in discord. Physical violence in the commu­nity occurred rarely; other methods for conflict resolution being preferred. Interestingly, households tended to be physi­cally distant from one another. Community identity was rela­tively weak and the community described as "loosely struc­tured." Family composition was unstable and husbands tended to have long absences from the home (P. 104-107). These last two characteristics, plus high divorce rates, are often thought to be associated with higher levels of violence. Levinson's study suggests that the most important factors were avoiding conflict, use of a range of techniques to deal with aggressive feelings, basic respect for all members of the community, and most important, absence of a division of labor by gender in the household.
Although Levinson's thesis will, no doubt, be subject to fur­ther research and scrutiny, it provides an indication not only of causes of gender violence, but also a vision of conditions under which violence would be eliminated as a major prob­lem for women. Such a vision offers a useful benchmark in the search for strategies to end gender violence.

Strategies to Combat Gender Violence
A general framework—such as that offered here—repre­sents a point of departure and a means of understanding the parameters of a problem, but it is not sufficient as a guide to action. Structuring a strategic response to a problem requires precise understanding of its context and social dynamics. The twelve case studies in this book highlight three critical issues for designing strategies to combat gender violence: 1) the social and psychological situation of abused women; 2) the cultural values tolerating violent behavior toward women; and 3) the legal system's position and response to the prob­lem. Accurate definition of these three areas provides clues about where to target strategic action.
The Victim. The woman who is raped or sustains abuse in the home or the work place has certain needs that flow direct­ly from the trauma she suffers as a victim of abuse.

• The battered woman is generally dependent, lacks a sense of freedom and self-confidence, and feels trapped both emotionally and financially in her situation. Powerlessness is a common characteristic of battered women. Both her physical and psychological injuries may require immedi­ate care and she may need legal protection (if available) or another form of assistance to safeguard her in the short term. Her long-term needs for security require the exis­tence or creation of viable alternatives to her current situa­tion, coupled with the psychological capacity to perceive such options and make choices.
• The woman who is raped or suffers another form of vio­lence—whether from acquaintances or strangers—also endures physical and psychological wounds requiring immediate attention and support. Hostile and bureaucrat­ic criminal procedures often have the impact of increasing her distress instead of ameliorating it. Shame may prevent her from revealing her anguish and the effect of this may position her in a situation of continuing or greater danger.

Underlying Values. Shared values, which regard women as inferior to men, are the critical factor in shaping abusive behaviors toward women.

• Traditional values give men proprietary rights over women. In line with a woman's utility as an asset, society highly values virginity in women. Wives are esteemed for their faithfulness to their male protectors and for the pro­ductive and reproductive contribution they make to his family. Rape of a woman is regarded as an offense against another male (husband or father). Men are entitled to con­trol the mobility of the women in their charge and to pun­ish the behavior they deem inappropriate.
• These values (shared by men and women) are functional in all societies to varying degrees. Some communities sanction practices that permit male authority figures to exercise high levels of physical violence over women. Even in those forms of violence against women carried out by other women—-usually some family member—the punitive or disciplinary character of the action reflects the need to maintain gender relations based on hierarchy and the superiority of the male.
• Most societies regard the family as sacrosanct—not to be interfered with by outside individuals or by the state— and the affairs of family members as private. Under a regime of unequal gender relations, women are at a clear disadvantage.
• Even in societies professing equality of all citizens, tradi­tional values often undermine formal affirmations of equality.

The Legal System. The law plays a critical role in sustaining or changing attitudes and practices related to gender violence.

• Law plays the dual role of reflecting fundamental social values and defining or shaping them.
• Laws define rape and other forms of gender violence in accord with society's views about women (traditionally, as subordinate to and the property of men.
• Enforcement and adjudication of these laws by the justice systems (through the police, prosecutors, and the courts) also mirror these values.
• Because law reflects social values, laws can be changed to create new behavioral norms reflecting new values about women.

All programmatic responses to gender violence address one or all of these areas: 1) the needs of the victims; 2) the social values that justify violent behavior toward women; and 3) the socio-legal system charged with protecting the rights of the innocent and sanctioning the guilty.

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A Tool for Assessing Strategies
Building on the experiences and insights of the contribu­tors to this book, the chart on pages 22 and 23 proposes a framework for analyzing strategy components and designs. While affirming that all strategies to combat violence against women deal with the three areas mentioned, the papers also reveal the enormous complexity of issues and the range of possibilities for action that program organizers must evaluate in the process of assembling an effective design. Because of the theme's complexity, there is a certain risk implied in selecting one among the many legitimate approaches to the systematic conceptualization of strategies. The challenge of proposing a framework for appraising strategies consists pre­cisely in making it comprehensive enough to capture the com­plexity of the issues, and yet simple enough to be functional as a tool for planning and assessment. Models and tools of this kind are useful only to the degree that they help eluci­date the problem and provide guidance in targeting action for change.
Most of the strategies in this book articulate three distinct but interrelated goals to their work: responding directly to the problems caused by the violence; changing values and behavior patterns in individuals and in institutions; and clari­fying the causes and nature of the violence in their particular context. This latter goal is a prerequisite for the other two, but can also be a goal in its own right. The papers also identify several common targets, or subjects, toward which the strate­gy's goals are directed. These targets include the victim (or potential victims), the "public/' state and social institutions, and the legal system. Activities aimed at understanding vio­lence (research) appropriately touch all of these subjects. Activities responding to the concrete effects of violence, and those geared toward changing the way people and institu­tions behave in the long term, can similarly cover the range of these targets.
Building on these cues, the framework approaches strate­gies from the perspective of 1) the individuals and institutions the strategy aims to affect (the vertical axis), and 2) the objec­tives to be achieved (the horizontal axis). The cells of the matrix describe the essential activities a strategy would include at the intersection of the goals and targets. As a point of clarification, if the strategies framework presented here appears to be lacking a category designated "political," or if no special niche for "education" surfaces, these omissions are not by accident, but by design. Their absence in the schematic chart is meant to emphasize the political nature of all strate­gies and to affirm the necessity of an educational dimension at every point.
Subjects and Targets of Strategies

• Victims. The abused woman is perhaps the most obvious subject to which strategies to combat violence against women are directed. Many strategies make responding to the needs of the violence victims for safety, for redress, and for alternatives to their situation a major priority. Programs with preventive approaches expand the concept of the victim to include potential victims, those who are vulnerable although not yet victims of violence, in addi­tion to already abused women.
• The "Public." Most programs at some level want to influ­ence the "public," that somewhat amorphous mass of individuals whose ideas and values must be challenged and changed if social behaviors are to be changed. Awareness raising campaigns through the media and other means of mass communication are the preferred methods for this category of subject.
• Institutions. Since people derive and sustain their values from social interaction, a key strategic target are those institutions, organizations and groups with power to influence social thought and behavior. They include edu­cational institutions such as schools and universities, reli­gious and cultural institutions, and the media. They also include those professions whose members come into con­tact with violence victims such as religious authorities and the healing professions. Identifying key points of institutional influence is critical to any strategy.
• Laws. This category covers the content of all laws govern­ing any aspect of gender violence. Since laws prescribe behavioral norms, specify measures of acceptable and unacceptable conduct, and delineate rights and sanctions, they provide a vital opportunity to formalize values of respect for women and intolerance of violence toward them.
• Law Enforcement Agencies. Another critical arena for action encompasses the agents of the state charged with enforc­ing the law: police; prosecutors; and judges. The intended effect of even the best laws can be nullified if they are not enforced. Very often the biases of the police lead them to ignore their responsibilities related to gender violence— sometimes to the point of becoming violators and abusers themselves. Thus, a strategic approach aggressively con­fronts this level of institutional behavior. The final, often indispensable, target of strategic action is the courts. Through their treatment of women, their handling of gen­der violence cases, and the biases of judges and magis­trates in making judicial decisions—they determine pat­terns of judicial behavior that will be tolerated in cases dealing with women and violence whether or not justice will be served in specific cases. Thus, the police and the court system are significant targets of strategic action.

The Strategy Matrix​

​The purpose of a strategy is to intervene—to take action— for change. Interventions respond directly to the existence of gender violence. They also seek to establish new value and behavioral patterns in order to improve the way society deals with victims and abusers, and ultimately to eliminate violent acts toward women. As a prerequisite for any of these inter­ventions, research provides understanding about the nature and context of violence.

• Understanding the violence: The need for research is a con­stant factor in all strategies. Without solid data and infor­mation, a strategy can only be an intuitive response, a sometimes necessary point of departure, but insufficient as a sole source of information. To move beyond "hit or miss" possibilities for success, organizers must find the means to obtain the needed information. Even before action begins, defining a strategy in any context requires clarity about many issues: What is the extent of the prob­lem? What are the physical and psychological effects on women? What kind of resources are available or needed to confront the distress of abused women or to prevent vio­lence? What opportunities exist for effecting behavioral changes about gender violence at the cultural and struc­tural levels? What about the law as stated and applied? What changes are needed in the law, in institutions? What is the best way to approach the task? What allies or natural constituencies exist to support the strategy? Once action begins, the organization of the strategy itself, its methodol­ogy and the results obtained, among other factors, must be systematically assessed to keep it on track. Research and evaluation provide the information and analytical infrastructure upon which to build a particular strategy.
• Responding to the violence: Dealing with the effects of actu­al violence defines the first and most immediate type of intervention. Included under this category is provision of services to the victim: hotlines; shelters; rape crisis or other centers that provide legal, psychological, medical assistance. Intervention strategies also deal with the pub­lic and with institutional factors that affect the quality of response the victim will receive. Working with the police, prosecutors, state social service agencies, and the courts all form part of strategies aimed at responding to the actu­ality of gender violence, whatever its specific form. Response strategies address two principle concerns. The first is with achieving protection for the victim and restraint of the abuser, by whatever means are available through the law or otherwise. The second concern is with defining alternative solutions for the survivor that deal with her physical health, her psychological well-being, her economic and social status etc.
• Attacking the roots of the violence: A second type of inter­vention aims to create a new social ethic related to women and violence. It is both preventive and prescriptive as it seeks to lay down new standards of behavior and new values regarding women. In working with survivors or potential victims, this type of intervention includes activi­ties that empower women to defend themselves by devel­oping new skills and by organizing politically. Work with the public and with key social institutions focuses on breaking the silence about violence and making it a politi­cal issue relevant to all, not just to women. A preven­tive/prescriptive intervention implies cultivating sympa­thetic allies and constituencies to participate in changing behavioral norms at legal, institutional, and personal lev­els. Within the legal system, preventive strategies focus on reframing the very basis of the law, in addition to reforming the provision of individual laws. Influencing the police, prosecutors, judges and other actors in the judicial system is an important aspect of prevention since the goal is changing both individual and institutional behaviors and norms.

Creating a "Strategic" Response
Being strategic implies more than a systematic approach to planning and executing a set of organized actions to achieve a specified goal. Being strategic presupposes the presence of several carefully chosen and sharply focused elements. It means having a clear and accurate perspective about the problem and potential approaches in a given context. It means appreciating the relative value of possible goals and methods that could be selected, and then choosing those with the great­est potential for impact. Once the work begins, it also means maintaining a critical view of every aspect of the strategy (perspective, goals, targets, activities, etc.) and a constant awareness of new implications, complexities, and pitfalls that are guaranteed to emerge in action, and being willing to change with the new challenges. The strategic character is a transitory one: it does not remain without renewal and con­stant evaluation.
These characteristics have several implications for combat­ting gender violence. At a minimum, designing an effective strategy requires sufficient information to form a clear pic­ture of the aspect of the problem to be attacked, its causes and effects, what needs to be changed, and what can be changed in a given context. The clearer the picture, the more likely the strategy will have an impact. The framework presented here suggests that a strategic approach to gender violence incor­porates goals that not only deal with the immediate results of the violence, but aim to eliminate socially sanctioned violent behaviors and values at both individual and institutional lev­els. The framework also suggests that while appreciating the relative value of all of the targets and all of the goals outlined, a strategic approach to gender violence selects those that are appropriate to the context and contain the greatest possibili­ties for achieving change.
While a comprehensive design is of undoubted value, the importance of being selective must also be underscored, as it is neither possible nor desirable to tackle every option. Whether, how, and when to take on the judiciary, for exam­ple, requires careful consideration. The structure of the legal system, the culture of the judiciary, and substance of the law in a given country will largely determine what can be done with the courts. The possibilities vary widely. Using the courts in Pakistan or Sudan, where religious norms override civil, even constitutional law, will require a different strategy from what might be employed in a secular state. Using the courts to attain redress for a rape victim in a country where the laws governing rape are still patently patriarchal, insensi­tive and discriminatory is probably a misdirected strategy, and efforts would be better spent elsewhere. Perhaps it would be best in that situation to work on changing the law and hold off using the courts until the legal foundation for further gains is established. The very nature of the adversarial sys­tem precludes the use of litigation in some matters, although in others it may be a valuable strategy. Restrictions on citizen mobilization will impede certain political activities that might be undertaken in more open contexts.
There are also situations in which the limited resources of a group will restrict the strategy it can develop and the issues it can tackle. Sometimes it is important to limit the scope of a strategy by choice; centering on a limited aspect can deepen the understanding of issues and develop new insights about methodologies. There may also be "windows of opportunity" that permit great advances in a short period of time, even though the focus remains on a narrow aspect of the problem. The example of the Musasa project in Zimbabwe demonstrates that working on a restricted part of the judicial system at a given moment may be effective, even though it has its limits. Simply put, not every activity can or need be undertaken simultaneously.
The main reason strategies stagnate and lose their vitality or fail to develop at all, however, is that they often center sole­ly on one aspect of the problem or rely on one solution with­out reference to the total picture. Every paper in this book, without exception, recognizes the limitations of an exclusive focus and cautions against it. Kelkar (India) critiques those elements of the women's movement that placed too much emphasis on law reform strategies without an appreciation of the other social dynamics underpinning gender violence in India. Fernandez points out that in Malaysia, the women's movement realized that shelters and crisis centers were not enough without reform of all of the laws dealing with women and violence. In Mexico, some groups working on domestic violence refused to work with government agencies and found themselves overwhelmed and unable to handle the magnitude of services at the scale needed. Thus, the strategic dimension requires incorporating into the response an appre­ciation of the complexity of the problem.
This affirmation, however, raises another issue. Appreciating the depth and breadth of required changes can be so compelling that organizers try to do too much, and the strategy ends up too broadly conceived and too diluted to be effective in achieving the primary goal. For example, since economic dependence is such a critical factor in violence that occurs in the home, stopping wife battery requires, among other things, improving women's economic situation. For groups concerned with domestic violence, the dilemma comes in translating this understanding of the problem into action. Should they start an economic enterprise to offer employment to women trapped in the home? Should they focus on women's education or training to provide the basis for inde­pendent economic survival? To do so in most cases would channel energies into areas complex in themselves and requir­ing resources beyond the reach of most groups. In some cir­cumstances, however, the only way to deal with the problem may be by taking on a related, underlying issue that is not directly concerned with violence per se. For example, where inheritance or land ownership patterns lead to widow abuse, as is the case in many parts of Africa, changing legal norms related to land tenure to circumvent the violent behavior may be required—in addition to setting up support groups or "funeral committees" to protect the well-being of the widow. The issue is not whether women's economic vulnerability and the other factors facilitating or perpetuating violence must be addressed: the issue is how, to what degree, when, and by whom they should be addressed.
Assembling an effective strategy is a process replete with pitfalls and traps. There are not only strategic targets and strategic goals, but strategic moments. An ineffective design can stem from focusing too narrowly or too broadly on the problem. It can also be the result of attempting to accomplish certain objectives when the circumstances or timing are not optimal. What appears critical in constructing a strategic plan is having a comprehensive view of the needs, together with an appreciation of the contextual possibilities and limitations.

Lessons, Issues and Challenges
The discussion up to this point has focused on identifying the essential elements of a strategy, the targets, goals and actions that can and should be undertaken under optimal cir­cumstances. A theoretical model summarized these elements to provide a point of reference for assembling a strategy. The discussion also emphasized the importance of considering context when framing a strategy, that is, of incorporating into the design the limits and possibilities for action that a context provides. The final section discusses some of the contempo­rary debates and new insights on gender violence strategy issues raised by the case studies.
Services
One of the themes that emerges throughout the papers is the need for a multidisciplinary, multisectoral approach in responding to the needs of victims. Gonzalez presents an insightful critique of the culture of "experts" which isolates and fragments knowledge to produce a splintered view of the problem of gender violence, alienated from the reality of the victim. By dealing with raped or battered women from their own insulated perspectives, law, medicine, psychology, and sociology end up by providing no solution at all to the victim and, therefore, to the problem.
Fernandez (Malaysia), Shrader Cox (Mexico), and Stewart (Zimbabwe) specifically mention the problem of the insensi­tivity of the legal and medical professions in dealing with raped or battered women. Training law enforcers, medical, and legal personnel who come in contact with victims to understand gender violence, to appreciate the trauma of the victim, and to take proper evidence for criminal proceedings, becomes among other issues, a priority. It is necessary that they respond to the victim's need to be treated with respect. However, Shrader Cox and Stewart both note the difficulty encountered in gaining the cooperation of professionals for training of this type. Professionals in law and medicine are particularly resistant to learning from anyone outside their specialty. The challenge is for advocates to find ways to crack the rigid shell of superiority surrounding those who have gained entrance to the professional fraternities.
Gonzalez advances an integrated approach in dealing with battered women intended to overcome the fragmentation of the specialists and redefine the practice of the professions. The proposed multidisciplinary alternative has lawyers, psy­chologists, social workers, and others working together to gain a holistic understanding of each particular case and the needs of the individual victim or survivor. Giving attention to the real life context of the battered woman, her hopeless­ness, dependency, restricted options, and her consequent need for empowerment underpins the Chilean approach. The aim is to work with the abused woman to develop her capaci­ty to decide her own future, to formulate her own options and make choices. The professions support this process, but do not control it—a radical departure from the practice of liberal professions. Similarly, the strategy of the Musasa Project (Stewart, Zimbabwe) is one of empowering women to make decisions, to gain the skills they need to function assertively as human beings endowed with dignity and rights. Part of the Musasa approach is making the justice system more "user friendly," in order to allow the abused woman a measure of control over her own life by recognizing and activating her own legal options to obtain relief or redress. In addition to working w'ith police, the project attempts to influence prose­cutors, medical personnel, and others to reframe their con­cepts about women and violence.
The importance of a holistic vision in responding to the vic­tim and the roots of her problem is a theme echoed through­out the case studies in their discussion of service methodolo­gies. The "professional" issue is a thorny one, however, carrying pressures from within and without to challenge the vision. Heise and Chapman point out that as the battered women's movement in the United States gained momen­tum—a movement that pioneered models for rape crisis cen­ters, shelters, and other services for battered women—the sheer extent of the need required it to "professionalize" its services. Providing efficient services meant getting grants, managing budgets, hiring professional staff, and responding to advisory boards and other bureaucratic structures. The result was a tendency toward an overconcern with treating the symptoms of violence rather than dealing with the caus­es. The enormity of the work demanded by the services them­selves, and conditions set for their support, led many pro­grams to lose their creative edge.
The issue of professionalizing services goes hand in hand with the issue of scale; and both have programmatic implica­tions. The need for services increases with the rise in aware­ness of the problem in public consciousness. Demand for attention escalates as more women realize that crisis centers or shelters provide an immediate response to the distress of their violent experience. The situation of increased demand creates a new dynamic for non-governmental organizations. Since the amount of resources needed go beyond the capaci­ties of most groups and services, they eventually depend on some form of state support or the state takes over the services. Several of the case studies recognize the inevitability and util­ity of state involvement. Analyzing the Mexican experience, Shrader Cox notes that "government participation.,.allow[s] the movement to scale up, providing integrated services to many more women, as well as a large statistical database, higher visibility, and nation-wide networking."
State involvement sets up its own dynamic, however, and many groups are faced with a dilemma. While state involvement is needed to reach the numbers of women requiring assis­tance, government involvement can dilute the innovative and transformative character of the service. The original inspira­tion and methodology are often lost, partly through bureau­cratization and partly through ideological incompatibility. The challenge facing service programs in many parts of the world today is whether they can simultaneously respond to the many and contradictory requirements for such service. Can they be professional and still transform the nature of pro­fessionalism, can they accept government funding, participa­tion and scrutiny and still keep their innovative function in tact?

The Legal System
Closely linked to service strategies are those strategies involving the legal system in all its aspects. This ranges from legislative action and law reform, to law enforcement and prosecution.
Law Reform Strategies. The inadequacy of legal provisions protecting victims or sanctioning violent perpetrators is often the starting point for work on gender violence. Given the pub­lic sphere/private sphere dichotomy underpinning most laws, the legal system has failed to recognize various forms of gender violence as unacceptable social behavior. This per­suaded many women's movements to focus on criminalizing violence against women and making this the major thrust of their work. In the process of establishing a new legal frame­work for confronting gender violence, many important gains have been made, but several thorny issues still remain.
In most places, work on gender violence started with the reform of rape laws. Although many of the provisions sought by the women's movement were not incorporated, many of
the new rape laws represent important advances in defining rape and attaching sanctions to it. Rape in most countries is considered a crime and is punishable by prison sentence, but few laws entirely escape being tainted by the ideological frame of reference that still views the crime as being a "sexu­al" crime, or as an offense against another man or "society," but not as a crime against the victim. Among the cases repre­sented in this book, Mexico, Malaysia, and India offer examples of important gains made through the reform of rape laws. Changes to the Criminal Procedure Code and the Evidence Act in India incorporated the concept of "absence of consent," placing the burden of proof on the accused in custodial rape cases. Mexico's broadened definition of rape to include other forms of sexual assault besides penetration of the vagina by the penis is another example. However, there are countries where rape laws are not only inadequate, but leave rape vic­tims vulnerable to prosecution themselves. The enforcement of Islamic penal law in both Pakistan (Jilani) and the Sudan (Haleem) effectively deprive women of legal protection. If a woman cannot prove her accusation of rape, she herself can end up being accused of illicit sex, a punishable crime.
In the area of domestic violence, the concept of criminal­ization takes on a different and more difficult cast. Since domestic violence occurs in the home, the role of law in responding to the problem has historically been open to much debate and experimentation. Despite the current tendency to regard domestic battery as a crime, no different from battery committed in the street, there continues to be concern that the punitive nature of penal law makes it an inadequate and inap­propriate instrument for dealing with the problem. What most women want is for the violence to stop, not for their hus­bands to be sent to jail, a sentiment echoed in every paper in this book dealing with domestic violence. The search for the appropriate ground between punishment and reeducation or therapy will most likely continue for some time. Partial clari­fication has already taken place, however, and a consensus already exists that the law can provide an important escape hatch for women trapped in a violent domestic situation.
Two tendencies in law reform strategies on domestic vio­lence have emerged. One is the creation and use of legal protection orders. The second is legal provision for aggres­sive or mandatory arrest and prosecution of abusers. There are two principle advantages of mandatory arrest and prose­cution policies for domestic battery. First it sends a powerful message to the abuser that such behavior will not be tolerated by the law. The deterrent effect of some form of police inter­vention in most contexts is a useful tool. Second, mandatory arrest and prosecution policies take the burden off the wife in the decision about whether to prosecute. When faced with the responsibility of pressing charges against their mates, many women back out after the immediate danger has passed. The victim's failure to press charges is the excuse many police use for failing to take any action in domestic violence cases, creat­ing a "catch 22" situation. Under mandatory policies, the decision to prosecute is not left up to the victim but to the state. However, the disadvantage of this approach is that, fearing their husbands will be sent to jail, many women will not even report the battery. The effect is that no intervention or recourse is available to them during or after their emergency.
As many women do not want to prosecute or leave their husbands, civil remedies provide a more satisfactory solution. Protection orders, for example, offer needed and timely safe­ty mechanisms. The effect of the protection order is to remove the threat at the point of danger and allow the woman space to explore her options. It is critical however, that protection orders be available expeditiously and without cumbersome court proceedings. In some places women themselves can file their petitions. Because of the increased economic vulnerabil­ity of many women who leave their abusive situations, some jurisdictions are exploring other civil remedies covering rights to domicile and control of economic resources.
An issue of concern to many at a different level of magni­tude is the long term social effect of the criminalization strate­gy. While recognizing the necessity of breaking down the pub- lic/private dichotomy as a mechanism preventing women from receiving protection from abuse perpetrated in the family, many fear that increased police authority in that sphere can lead to other abuses. Repression through these means of minor­ity men in the United States is a present danger. Speaking from the Bolivian context, Montano points out,
When the state and its instruments have penetrated the bedroom only to repress and pillage—such as during dictatorships when their authoritarian and coercive presence through law has been used to legit­imize their social regimes—it is quite difficult to debate the problem of domestic violence publicly without appearing to validate their misuse of power. Despite the danger Montano concludes, and others concur through their actions, the risk is one that must be taken.
In balance, law reform strategies have been useful, even essential. Few would deny the necessity of establishing a legal basis for dealing with rape and for reconceptualizing the notion of "sex crimes," and few would consider the energies spent on reforming laws related to domestic violence as wast­ed effort. However, expressions of caution about overvaluing law reform strategies are also valid. Kelkar points out that the new laws in India did not empower women to halt the increasing violence and destruction in their lives, and that women continue to be judged from the male perspective. Moreover, when the movement was unprepared to respond, laws were reshaped and reinterpreted in terms unfavorable to women, an experience not confined to South Asia. An alarming trend in many areas is the incorporation of particu­lar religious or ethnic standards into civil law, which general­ly have negative effects on women. The experiences of India, the United States, Malaysia, and other countries where fun­damentalism is gaining political strength, exemplify how hard-won gains can be dissipated unless there is constant vig­ilance over the law's application and interpretation. Legal reform strategies work best, after all, when the social value base is in concordance with the desired new norms. As long as the old regime of values is in effect, the tasks of making the new norms operative, or activating the educative function of law to change values, will be difficult and require action on many fronts.
Police and Law Enforcement Strategies. Police failure to pro­vide appropriate response to domestic violence and rape has been a major stumbling block and one of the primary targets for change. Part of the enforcement problem is the inadequate definition of gender crimes and police authority to act.
Another part of the problem is police attitudes about violence against women, which they tend to treat as an inconsequen­tial, private matter. Changing police culture regarding gender violence requires strategies that confront both aspects of this problem. Precise legislation defining the crimes and outlining police authority and responsibility addresses the first part. Reeducating the police to eliminate their biases and incorpo­rate a new frame of reference for dealing with gender crimes addresses the second.
Hand in hand with law reform efforts, several countries have initiated direct police training. The tendency in the U.S. is for both training and aggressive or mandatory arrest poli­cies (Heise & Chapman). In Zimbabwe, the Musasa Project works to change police assumptions about women, rape, and domestic violence and develop police skills in dealing with violence cases (Stewart). Police training and the creation of specialized units formed part of Malaysia's strategy (Fernandez). Involving the police in making recommenda­tions for law reform is an additional educational strategy incorporated into these programs. Brazil's innovative answer was to set up "women's police stations," (Eluf) staffed entire­ly by women, to handle domestic violence and rape cases pri­marily.
The authors' accounts about how they managed to engage the police and other government agencies in responding seri­ously to rape and other crimes of violence against women offer lessons about the importance of educational strategies at the institutional level. Curiously, in both Malaysia and Zimbabwe, it was easier to get to the top levels of the police involved than the police "on the ground," yet the officers pre­sent in communities are the ones who come into direct con­tact with gender violence cases and need the training the most. Winning the police over at the top levels, while neces­sary, is not enough.
Defining the precise role of the police in dealing with gen­der violence crimes is still an open and somewhat ragged pro­cess. Legislative mandates for behavioral change and educa­tional encouragement for attitudinal change both destabilize the status quo. Challenges to the old ways do not automati­cally create the new patterns, and a process of confusing readjustment and redefinition is not uncommon. The adage "a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing" appears to be valid in some cases. After their training in Zimbabwe, some police officers began to see themselves as counselors rather than law enforcers, and instead of arresting a wife batterer, would give both wife and batterer some counselling and send them home. At the other extreme, Heise and Chapman note examples of policemen in the United States arresting both the abuser and the abused out of resistance to the mandatory arrest policies. Stewart makes the observation that education­al strategies within the system count on the collaboration of the system to change itself. This is a functional strategy only as long as the change does not present too great a challenge. Where there is total resistance to change from within, legislat­ing change as a result of political pressure may be the answer. There may be some places where the political context is such that neither can be effectively used.
Achieving a balance between legislating police behavior and educating police to change their behavior produces a ten­sion in many strategies. Since there are no prescribed means for achieving the needed changes, debate on how to transform police culture is likely to be an issue for some time to come. What is certain is that neither legislation nor education is suf­ficient as a sole strategy.
Strategies in the Courts. Even where the police act responsi­bly in gender violence cases, the courts have the final say. Unless prosecutors and judges consistently apply an adequate interpretation of the law, gains made in changing laws and in improving police enforcement of them will be diminished, if not entirely negated. If sanctions against certain violations are not enforced, the message to the public is that these crimes are not serious. The challenge to advocates, however, is to determine how to make a difference at the level of the courts and then how much energy to expend there.
One strategy often used to change court conduct is to con­tribute to building a new jurisprudence relating to gender vio­lence. Using test cases to introduce new frameworks and new arguments is one way to press the judicial system, to alter its treatment of women and its handling of gender violence cases. This approach presupposes, of course, that the laws provide some basis for victory and, therefore, for influencing court and public behavior. A current issue of public interest in many places is "acquaintance" rape. Using the courts to clarify and reinforce the right of a woman to say "no" to sexual relations and have her word understood as "no" will go a long way in defining both the latitude of socially acceptable sexual behav­ior and the meaning of rape. Haleem describes how it took only a few cases of women courageous enough to take their complaints of forced marriage to court in Sudan to raise awareness about a woman's right to consent, and put parents on notice that they could not simply marry off their daughter without her agreement.
Another technique, which has the dual effect of raising public awareness and getting the court's attention in order to reexamine its practices as well as the content of the law, con­sists of monitoring court judgments and treatment of women and then publicizing the findings. This approach has been used in the U.S. for the past ten years (Heise & Chapman). Fernandez also describes the positive effect on the Malaysian judiciary of media attention to biased court judgments. To avoid getting "bad press" or developing a reputation for not being fair, even the most entrenched patriarchal or bureau­cratic institutions can be jolted to a positive response out of pure self interest. Of course, these are only partial and often temporary victories, but they allow the movement to get a foothold into institutions normally resistant to change.
On a more direct basis, sensitizing prosecutors and judges to their own personal biases and helping them develop a dif­ferent framework for dealing with gender issues can be done through more formal educational strategies. In countries where judges are required to keep updated professionally through some form of continuing education program, the inclusion of "gender training" in these programs can have an impact. However, as in the case of the police, the critical fac­tor in this type of reeducation effort is the judges' openness or willingness to change.
Confronting gender bias in the courts is troublesome enough when working with laws that are favorable to women. The task of changing judicial culture is made more difficult in contexts where the legal norms and the judges are gender biased. The difficulty intensifies in countries where two, or even three, legal systems operate simultaneously. In some regions, religious and customary law (or even customs that would not qualify as law) interface with general law in such a way that the resulting confusion severely disadvan­tages women. Predominantly male judges or magistrates, schooled in traditional mores and perspectives about women, tend to apply the traditional standards in their rulings. Under these circumstances, educational strategies can only go so far and must be accompanied by other measures to challenge court practice.
One strategy beginning to unfold that may have an impact on court behavior, even at the local level, is the application of international human rights standards to gender violence. Sexual torture and custodial rape are now being addressed as violations of political and civil rights with the force of the international human rights covenants and mechanisms behind them (Jilani). Activating these mechanisms should also provide additional support for the difficult task of con­fronting the maze of intricate issues related to trafficking in women, which up to this point has had little success in using legal remedies (Skrobanek).
There is also a move, both by scholars and activists, to address from within the human rights framework other forms of gender violence that have generally been regarded as out­side the purview of human rights issues and practice, due to their "private" character. Included in this category are those forms of gender violence, including rape and various kinds of violence against women in the home, that are not perpe­trated by the state, but by whose failure to take action the state becomes accountable. This initiative seeks to activate mechanisms at the international level to redress such viola­tions and establish measures of state accountability for them. The symbolic and formal value of the link with human rights promises to provide a pivotal tool for the battle within the courts, and for raising awareness about the issues of gender violence generally. 

Leadership and Mobilizing for Action
Most of the papers in this collection address the role of leadership in developing strategies to confront gender vio­lence, and the position of the feminist movement vis-à-vis the public and the state. It is evident that while women's concern about the situation of women is what sparks action to combat gender violence, if that goal is to be achieved, strategies must evolve from direct personal responses into organized, broad- based political strategies.
Both Fernandez and Montano recognize that building a strategy means building a movement, a highly political task being carried out by women who in many cases are both learning and redefining the meaning of being political in the process of doing it. The small feminist group in a country that first articulates the need and the theoretical framework for confronting gender violence, also becomes the force behind mobilizing women's organizations and other allies to chal­lenge the public, the media, state institutions, and the judicial system to respond to their demands. The case studies of Malaysia, Mexico, Bolivia and India, (Fernandez, Shrader Cox, Montano and Kelkar) analyze the importance of leader­ship and its dilemma of giving direction to the movement, while simultaneously encouraging democratic participation; of overcoming the tendency to rely on a small group for lead­ership and action, and failing to develop a base of support at the grassroots.
Strategies to achieve the cultural and structural changes required to stop gender violence must engage a broad base of self-interested support in the political process at various levels. Whether working to confront the specific manifestations of gender violence, or working to change the underlying social values that sustain violence in the home or the institutions that give structure to life, strategies must confront how peo­ple view themselves and the way things should be. Changing either of these means building a base of individuals who think differently and who are willing to challenge and change what society permits as the norm for behavior toward women. Education and consciousness raising only achieve their pur­pose when gender violence becomes an issue of vital impor­tance to people's lives. Mobilization can only take place when people are willing to act, and people take action only when something is important to them. The educational process of making gender violence relevant to people essentially does three things: it challenges people at the individual level to reexamine and change their own views and behaviors; it builds a larger pool of people seeking solutions; and it creates a base of political support that functions to pressure for change at the structural level. Thus, the key to success in any strategy, both short and long term, is making gender violence an issue of critical importance to everyone: women; men; the public; institutions; the state.

Final Thoughts, Summary and Recommendations
In the final analysis, the purpose of any strategy to combat gender violence is to create a world where women are free from violence—and free from the fear of violence—in the home, in the street, and in the workplace. In the end, this means confronting the material reality of violence in women's lives, the particular conditions that facilitate its existence, and finally, at the deepest level, the way society organizes its beliefs and its institutions to sustain gender violence. Exploring gender violence from a cross-cultural perspective brings these common threads into sharp relief and permits us to gain some clarity about what needs to be done, despite the fact that the manifestations of gender violence vary from cul­ture to culture and even within cultures.
There are several important lessons about strategies to combat violence against women that have emerged from the papers contained in this book. The final section of this introductory chapter will summarize these lessons and make some recom­mendations related to strategies. They are offered as tools for planning and evaluating strategy designs, and for stimulat­ing further thought and discussion about how to be respon­sive and effective in creating the world we all desire: free from violence against women.
General Recommendations and Criteria for Strategy Design

1. Strategies that get at the root of the problem confront sev­eral common issues: a) the effects of the violence in itself; b) the role institutions (legal, social, religious, cultural, economic, etc.) play vis-^-vis the violence; and c) the underlying social values that shape the behaviors and permit gender violence to be part of daily life. Unless all of these issues are addressed, the response can only be partial.
2. In developing strategies for any of these areas, a range of people and institutions must be addressed: the victim her­self; potential victims; abusers; institutions that have responsibility to the victim; law making and law enforc­ing bodies; and institutions that shape social values and behaviors, such as religious, educational, economic and other organizations.
3. All strategies must include research and some form of action or intervention. Research serves to elucidate and document the violence; its nature, source, context, justifi­cation, incidence, etc. Interventions respond to the vio­lence that already exists and attack the roots of the vio­lence by contributing to building a new ethic—new social and legal norms surrounding violence.
4. Consideration of the social context is critical in shaping a particular strategy, as the needs and possibilities for effec­tive action will vary from situation to situation.
5. A strategy combines these elements to effect change in a given context according to the needs and possibilities for action in the context.
6. The Political dimension is present in all strategies, whether serving victims of violence or achieving legislative changes.
7. Strategies that deal with only one part of the problem can still play an important role, as long as they are understood to be partial and part of a larger framework.
8. Strategies that rely solely on the legal system or on educa­tion or any other single factor to stop gender violence are doomed to fail.

Evaluative Principles for Specific Types of Interventions
The three most common types of interventions are:

• Services programs, which address the needs of the vic­tims of violence.
• Legal or Structural Reform activities, which address the legal system, laws and law enforcement.
• Public Education programs or campaigns, which address people's values, attitudes and actions related to gender violence. (Education is also part of services and legal reform activities.)

Criteria related to Services
(Shelters, Rape Crisis Interventions, Counseling, Legal Services)

• Services include an integrated, multidisciplinary approach.
• Services staffs work closely with police, hospitals, courts and other agencies of the legal system.
• Education is included at all levels.
• The victims are involved in their own process (psycholog­ical, social, legal).
• Effective services include research and evaluation as on­going sources of data for analysis and development of new approaches.
• Support systems for women are integral to the program.
• The program is fully cognizant of problems associated with shelters and takes care to resolve them, especially: the environment of the shelter; the safety of the others in the house, i.e. the secrecy of the house; and the training of the personnel working with the victims.
• Services respond (to the degree possible) to the underly­ing causes and factors facilitating the violence (family structure, economic dependency, lack of alternatives, safe­ty issues in the street and workplace, etc.), and attempt to find solutions to these problems.
• Programs should try to attain financial independence, but self-financing schemes are not always feasible.
• Where possible, ancillary government services should be activated to support the program.
• Since direct government support often places limitations on programs—especially on lobbying for change—effort should be made to maintain autonomy.
• Donors should be worked with to help find solutions to financial cost of services.

Criteria related to Legal System Reform
Law Reform (laws and policies)

• Constitutional changes are a priority.
• Alternative legal frameworks, concepts, and arguments for law reform initiatives are formulated to make value base clear and explicit.
• Law reform is linked to larger issues of social justice.
• Concepts of punishment reflect values of nonviolence.
• Both criminal and civil remedies are considered in formu­lating laws related to domestic violence.
• Where possible, customary law is used as a source for evaluating and constructing the law.
• Gender violence legislation is linked to principles of human rights.
• Law reform initiatives include preventive measures.
• Law reforms accompany other changes in the system.
• Law reform is seen as one aspect of the process, not the final victory, and organizers are aware of the trap of being seduced by political victories.
• Law Enforcement (Police, Prosecution, Courts)
• Priority targets for law enforcement strategies are those areas of the system that blame the victim (police, judges, etc.) and make them accountable.
• The work includes education of police and prosecutors to develop new attitudes and methods of dealing with gen­der violence cases.
• Monitoring police and court handling of gender violence cases provides a base of information to be used to reinforce positive change and pressure for further change.
• The same approach (education, monitoring, pressure, etc.) is used with other persons and professions involved with the issues—judges, legislators, lawyers.
• Litigation is used as a means to improve court behavior and judgments.

Criteria related to Public Education and Mobilization

• Consciousness raising is part of all strategies (i.e., ser­vices, law reform, law enforcement strategies) and aims to make gender violence a public issue.
• Public education programs popularize the law to make it accessible to women.
• Content of education on gender violence includes the role of the family and exposes myths about women's inferiority.
• Providing information is insufficient—people learn when involved actively and when the content is relevant to their lives.
• Education is systematic and sustained.
• Research as an educational method is important and should be encouraged.
• Public education strategies target the educational system and other key institutions.
• Lawyers and others in the judicial system are targeted for education about violence against women.
• Educational efforts are evaluated qualitatively and quan­titatively.
• Mobilizing people politically involves: bringing the issue to the public; empowering women to take action; gaining allies and encouraging action by others (previously silent); making issues/demands known through protest and alternative actions, including:

                                 Sit-ins/resistance             Boycotts
                                 Hunger strikes                 Demonstrations
                                 Court attendance             Informal means
                                 Press releases/conferences

• Organizing mass demonstrations is one, but not the only, form of mobilizing.
• The victims/survivors are involved in the mobilization. The media is used to call attention to the issue.

Notes to International Perspective
1.    See Resources List at the end of this publication.
2.    References to articles in this book are indicated by placing the author's name between parentheses, e.g., (Heise & Chapman). No date appears either within the parentheses or in the text. Reference to other material follows the APA convention of listing the author's surname together with the year of his or her publication.
3.    Sati is a traditional practice in which a widow joins her hus­band in death by burning herself on his funeral pyre. Outlawed in India 1829, the practice has recently been pro­moted by fundamentalist religious factions as a religious right protected by the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion. A celebrated case in 1987 challenged the women's movement in India to organize political and legal responses to this new test of its own strength.
4.    "Bride burning," "dowry death," and "dowry murder" are terms used to refer to the murder or suicide of a young wife as the result of harassment by her in-laws to produce more income to the family in the form of dowry. Such deaths are often the result of kerosene burns. See Jilani and Kelkar's articles in this volume and the journal Manushi (New Delhi) for a further discussion of this issue.
5.    "Female circumcision," the cultural practice of surgically altering female genitalia, is of three types: excision (removal of the prepuce of the clitoris); clitorectomy (removal of the cli­toris) and infibulation (removal of the entire clitoris, labia minora and labia majora). It is still practiced in many parts of the world, particularly in the Middle East and in Africa.
6.    Female feticide is a term used to designate the selective abor­tion of the female fetus. It is practiced in those areas of the world where a daughter is considered a liability to a family.
7.    For a discussion of the problem of suicide, see Heise, L. "Violence Against Women: The Missing Agenda" in Women’s Health: A Global Perspective. M.A. Koblinsky, J. Timyan & J. Gay (eds.) Westview Press, forthcoming, 1992.
8.    The "honor defense" permits a full or partial excuse for homicide or bodily injury inflicted on a woman by her hus­band (or any direct male relation) who surprises her in the act of illicit sexual relations. The concept still exists in the penal codes of several Middle Eastern and Mediterranean countries and is used even where there are no provisions for it in law. (See Laure Moghaizel, "The Arab and Mediterranean World: Legislation Towards Crimes of Honor," in Schuler, 1986).

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