An introduction to violence against women as a human rights and public health problem

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show to those who are beginning to study the subject of violence against women a brief historical overview of the way it gradually became a theme of the fields of Human Rights and Public Health. We start with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to discuss its importance for the field of Human Rights and to analyze the polemic between human rights versus women's rights. After that, we present the international treaties and conventions that protect women's rights and their importance to raise the awareness of the Public Health field about violence. Initially seen as "external causes" of morbidity and mortality, because of its high incidence and several social, economic and health (physical and psychological) damages, nowadays violence is seen as a specific domain of the Public Health field that needs urgent intervention. In particular, violence against women is a global problem that reaches people of all social classes, religions and ethnic groups. We claim that, since the inclusion of violence against women in the fields of Human Rights and Public Health, more effective transformations in the legal policies of several countries have begun to occur, like the creation of interventional programs and other supports. At the end, we show Brazil's position about gender equality.