The Impact of Violence on Reproductive Health Tanzania and Vietnam (PAVE)

project summary

This project begins from the assumption that to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), intimate partner violence (IPV) must be addressed. Research shows that violence against women is associated with significant SRH problems and that the most common form of violence is that performed by a male partner. This project takes a two-country comparative approach, aiming to highlight how cultural norms, social forces, and gender relations structure experiences of and responses to violence. While the overall relationships between violence and SRH are by now well established, there is a lack of knowledge regarding the more specific associations. First, it is not clear HOW IPV affects SRH: there is a lack of prospective studies of the underlying local-level processes through which associations between IPV and SRH are generated. Second, it is not clear how the primary health care sector can best address this problem, as lack of knowledge about the pathways by which violence impacts SRH hampers health sector capacities to care for women exposed to violence. Viewing violence against women as a human rights abuse, this project aims to produce new interdisciplinary knowledge about the linkages between IVP and SRH with particular emphasis on health sector responses. The research will be conducted in Tanzania and Vietnam, two countries with socialist histories where national surveys show high IPV prevalence and governments express commitment to combat gender inequalities.