Editorial

Intimate partner violence is both a very familiar and a new issue for social work. On the one hand, ‘wife abuse’ and ‘woman abuse’ have repeatedly been placed upon policy agendas during the twentieth century (see e.g. Wendt-Höjer 2002, 89) and social workers have been intervening in families where one parent – typically the father – has been violent to both partner and children. On the other hand, social work with intimate partner violence has tended to be treated as a matter for voluntary workers, often without formal training or professional qualifications, and until very recently it was primarily NGOs that engaged with the issue in a focused way. That picture is no longer accurate. Through women’s rights activism and change in international policy and law, most notably United Nations’ Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and 1993 Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, as well as the work of international bodies such as the Council of Europe, violence against women in general and intimate partner violence in particular has been placed upon the national policy agendas in all of the Nordic countries over the last decades. A recent example of international agreements calling upon states to take all necessary measures to end violence against women is the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, the so called Istanbul convention, from 2011. As a consequence of this development, the issue of violence in intimate relationships has become central to social work in new ways. Chains of reforms in all of the Nordic countries have meant that the support to victims, and to some extent also work with perpetrators of intimate partner violence, has become more integrated into the ordinary work of the local government social services and practitioners belonging to the social work profession. An increased interest in the quality of services, minimum standards of practice, and effective methods both in the statutory and the voluntary sector has meant that as a whole, there has been a shift towards a more professionalised field in recent years. It is also possible to find examples of new forms of co-operation between the statutory and voluntary agencies in the work with intimate partner violence. The development in policy and practice has to some extent been mirrored by a growing body of Nordic social work research on intimate partner violence and on responses to this social problem. As is demonstrated by Anna Nikupeteri’s article in the current issue of Nordic Social Work Research, ending intimate partner violence can be a challenging task. Her study on the consequences of postseparation stalking for the women subjected to this form of violence was carried out in Finland but the results are of relevance for social work in a broader context. The study shows that stalking may cause overwhelming emotional experiences that constrains victim agency. In particular, women’s feelings of shame, as if being stalked was their own choice or failure, may create challenges for women and well as social workers. The study indicates that such emotional experiences play a significant role in the experience of being stalked and in determining whether the victim seeks and receives help. The effects of stalking on victims require social workers to use emotions as a source of knowledge enabling in-depth analysis of what is at stake for the women. Moreover, social workers need to engage in ethical reflection case by case if they wish to provide support for their clients, guide them to other services and