Experts to discuss ways of curbing gender violence

This would be the largest conference on violence against women and girls in the global south, the SA Medical Research Council (SAMRC) said in a statement on Sunday.

Violence against women and girls was one of the greatest social, economic, and public health problems facing the world today, it said.

It had been estimated that this accounted for as much death and ill health in women aged 15 to 44, as cancer, and was a greater cause of ill health than malaria and traffic accidents combined.

The economic cost of domestic violence alone was estimated to be US8.4 billion a year in Australia, US42 billion in the UK, and nearly 1.4 percent of GDP in Vietnam.

Globally, 35 percent of women had experienced some form of violence – 1.2 billion women – and 30 percent had experienced violence from their partner – over 1 billion women.

In Australia, Canada, Israel, South Africa, and the United States, between 40 and 70 percent of female murder victims were killed by their intimate partners, the SAMRC said.

In response, the SVRI was set up – a global research initiative to promote good quality research in the area of sexual violence, with a particular focus on the global south.

The SVRI would be hosted by the SAMRC’s gender and health research unit, a self-funded, self-co-ordinated group chaired by the World Health Organisation.

“The SVRI Forum 2015 brings together researchers, gender activists, funders, policy-makers, service providers, practitioners, and survivors from all over the world to showcase innovative practices to end sexual violence, intimate partner violence, and child abuse, and strengthen responses to survivors in low and middle income countries.

“Its ultimate purpose [is] to understand what is working and why, with a view to scaling up those successes. The growth of the forum over the years illustrates the increased value placed on research and evidence-informed programming – a biennial pilgrimage for those working in the field,” the SAMRC said.