to social and economic opportunities and resources, and in some settings, women in the poorest households may also be somewhat protected from violence. Jewkes argues that social and economic empowerment appears to increase women’s risk of violence in some settings by challenging traditional gender roles and increasing conflict in the household until, she writes, “a high enough level [of empowerment] has been reached for the protective effects to predominate.” The World Health Organization World Report on Violence came to the same conclusion, arguing: _Where women have a very low status, violence is not “needed” to enforce male authority . . . Partner violence is thus usually highest at the point where women begin to assume nontraditional roles or enter the workforce_ (Heise and Garcia Moreno, 2002, page 99).

Short-term increases in violence against women do not necessarily mean that a program will fail to reduce violence in the long run. Nor should an increase in violence be used as an excuse to deny women access to social and economic resources. Under some conditions, however, increases in violence against women may be a temporary, but unavoidable byproduct of challenging traditional gender norms. Ideally, social and economic programs should find ways to mitigate a violent male response.

While most sexual violence is perpetrated by persons known to the girl or woman, Jewkes, Sen and Garcia Moreno (2002) outline factors that can increase women’s vulnerability to sexual violence outside of intimate partnerships, including poverty, the safety of the physical environment in the community, social norms about men’s entitlement to sex, norms that place heavy responsibility on women for maintaining family “honor”, norms about women’s right to travel alone or work outside the home free of harassment, and armed conflict in which rape is sometimes used as a weapon of war. Researchers have increasingly begun to evaluate infrastructure projects--such as transportation, urban upgrading, water and sanitation-from a gender perspective, but little is known about the links between these projects and gender-based violence, and most information is anecdotal if not speculative.

# **Overview of economic, social and public safety initiatives**

Table 2.4 presents examples of initiatives that may have the potential to reduce women’s vulnerability to violence through multi-sectoral efforts such as economic development, increased opportunities for labor force participation, education, public safety, and access to comprehensive social services once physical or sexual violence begins.

# **Table 2.4. Examples** **<u>of multi-sectoral objectives and strategies</u>**

|**Level**|**Objectives**|**Specific interventions**|
|---|---|---|
|**Laws and**<br>**policies**|**To improve social and economic laws and policies**<br>• Increase investment in women's social and economic<br>development<br>• Strengthen economic and social policies that address GBV<br>• Ensure a comprehensive service response to survivors of<br>gender-based violence<br>|• Revised laws and policies to improve women’s economic rights to<br>property, inheritance, and labor force participation<br>• Multi-sectoral national or state plans for addressing gender-based<br>violence<br>• Policies mandating comprehensive social, medical and legal services<br>for survivors of gender-based violence|
|**Institutional**<br>**reform**|**To improve the response and capacity of social service**<br>**and economic development programs to address GBV**<br>|• Creation or strengthening of government offices dedicated to the<br>advancement of women|
||• Increase attention to violence against women by<br>institutions devoted to social and economic development<br>• Increase attention to violence in the design of urban<br>planning and transport projects<br>• Improve the quality and comprehensiveness of the social<br>service response to violence|• Integration of violence prevention into the programming of social and<br>economic development projects (e.g. urban upgrading, microcredit)<br>• Efforts to expand, improve and coordinate services for survivors: (e.g.<br>counseling, shelters, victim advocacy, hotlines, women's support<br>groups, children’s services, legal aid, batterer treatment, etc.)|

36