Gender, Rights & Interpersonal Violence

1-2 December 2016

Zebra Conference Centre
Ghent, Belgium

Organized by – ANSER – Academic Network for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Policy

INSEP participates in the Academic Network via the Working Group on Gender, Rights and Interpersonal Violence.

This GRIV Working Group organised a Session on Interpersonal Violence and Harmful Cultural Practices at the ANSER launch conference on SRHR policy research in Ghent on 1-2 December 2016.

During the session on Interpersonal Violence three speakers took the stage to present their recent work targeting very different populations. Paulina Tomaszewska discussed the prevalence and predictors of sexual aggression victimization and perpetration among young people in Poland: self-reported victimization (over 1 in 3 females and 1 in 4 males) was high.  An-Sofie Van Parys studied the impact of a referral-based intervention in pregnant women disclosing intimate partner violence on the prevalence of violence. Interestingly, respondents indicated that the questionnaire and the interview were perceived to be more helpful than the referral card itself. Ines Keygnaert’s presentation focused on health policies for refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants. She found that many policy frameworks dealing with sexual violence apply ‘tunnel vision’ ignoring frequently occurring types of sexual violence, victimisation rates across genders and specific risk factors such as migrants’ legal status.

In the second part of the session Lotte De Schrijver and Eline Scheire both discussed the estimation of FGM prevalence: in EU countries where low FGM prevalence is expected, extrapolation of data in the FGM-countries seems most appropriate, while in countries where a higher prevalence is expected, the combination of this indirect method and a direct estimation seems a more appropriate approach. Self-reporting is not a good way to estimate FGM prevalence. Prof Hazel Barrett and Dr Jennifer Glover presented their work on the development of a conceptual framework for understanding the psychological impacts of FGM and on the results of an innovative REPLACE Approach for achieving social norm transformation regarding FGM.