Violence against women is a human rights violation, social justice and public health problem that touches every level of society in every part of the world.  From young girls to older women, one out of every three is beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime.  WHO studies show that intimate partner violence is the most common form of violence against women worldwide.

This report, produced by the Pan American Health Organization, in collaboration with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, highlights that intimate partner and sexual violence against women is widespread in all Latin American and the Caribbean countries where survey data are available

 English

Summary Report:

 English
 Spanish

The information sheets in this series were jointly developed by the WHO and the Pan American Health Organization in order to summarize what is known about various aspects of violence against women with the aim of facilitating access to high quality data and promoting evidence-based policy and programs.  This series is aimed at program managers, practitioners, researchers, policy-makers and others working in a wide range of sectors and in every country. Some information sheets address specific forms of violence against women, while others address related health and social issues, such as HIV, intersections with child maltreatment, costs and consequences, and promising practices to address violence against women.

Overview
Intimate Partner Violence
Sexual Violence
Femicide
Human Trafficking
Female Genital Mutilation
Health Consequences

This manual, jointly developed by WHO and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, describes interventions of known effectiveness, those supported by emerging evidence, and those that could potentially be effective, but have yet to be sufficiently evaluated for their impact. For instance, school-based programs to prevent violence occurring in "dating relationships" have been shown to be effective in randomized trials in the USA and Canada. Evidence is emerging for the effectiveness of empowerment approaches which use microfinance combined with gender-equality training or are based on communications and relationship skills training such as the Stepping Stones training package, which has been widely used in low- and middle-income countries. Strategies that aim to prevent intimate partner and sexual violence through reducing the harmful use of alcohol also show promise. A six-step framework for planning, implementing and evaluating such prevention programs and policies is presented.

La Organización Mundial de la Salud define la violencia sexual como “todo acto sexual, la tentativa de consumar un acto sexual, los comentarios o insinuaciones sexuales no deseados, o las acciones para comercializar o utilizar de cualquier otro modo la sexualidad de una persona mediante coacción por otra persona, independientemente de la relación de ésta con la víctima, en cualquier ámbito, incluidos el hogar y el lugar de trabajo”. (Jewkes et al., 2002). Un limitado pero creciente conjunto de evidencia indica que la violencia sexual es un grave problema en toda la región de Latinoamérica y el Caribe (LAC), no sólo como problema de salud pública sino también como violación de los derechos humanos. El presente documento analiza los conocimientos sobre la violencia sexual en la región de LAC. Su objetivo es explorar la magnitud, los patrones y factores de riesgo asociados con la violencia sexual, así como los marcos jurídico y político, las respuestas de las mujeres a la violencia sexual, el acceso a los servicios y las respuestas de estos, las intervenciones prometedoras, las brechas en la investigación y las prioridades para futuras investigaciones.

 Violencia sexual en Latinoamérica y El Caribe: Análisis de datos secundarios (Marzo 2010) (513.67 kB)