Rape Crisis Scotland

Rape Crisis Scotland has developed a new information leaflet for survivors who have been attacked overseas.  The leaflet is written from 2 perspectives: that of a survivor who reported whilst still overseas but has subsequently returned to Scotland and that of a survivor who, having returned to Scotland, wishes to report an attack that happened abroad.

Intimate partner and sexual violence affect a large proportion of the population – with the majority of those directly experiencing such violence being women and the majority perpetrating it being men. The harm they cause can last a lifetime and span generations,with serious adverse affects on health, education and employment. The primary prevention of these types of violence will therefore save lives and money – investmentsmade now to stop intimate partner and sexual violence before they occur will protect the physical, mental and economic well-being and  development of individuals, families, communities and whole societies.

This document aims to provide sufficient information for policy-makers and planners to develop data-driven and evidence-based programmes for preventing intimate partner and sexual violence against women and is divided into the following chapters:

l Chapter 1 outlines the nature, magnitude and consequences of intimate partner and sexual violence within the broader typology of violence.

l Chapter 2 identifies the risk and protective factors for such violence and the importance of addressing both risk and protective factors in prevention efforts.

l Chapter 3 summarizes the scientific evidence base for primary prevention strategies, and describes programmes 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.

l Chapter 4 presents a six-step framework for taking action, generating evidence and sharing results.

In the closing section, several future research priorities are outlined and a number of key conclusions drawn.

The evidence-based prevention of intimate partner and sexual violence is still in its early days and much remains to be accomplished. At present, only one strategy has evidence supporting its effectiveness – and this only relates to intimate partner violence. The strategy in question is the use of school-based programmes to prevent violence within dating relationships. Evidence is, however, emerging of the effectiveness of a number of other strategies for preventing intimate partner and sexual violence, including microfinance programmes for women combined with gender-equality education; efforts to reduce access to and harmful use of alcohol; and changing social and cultural gender norms. Many more strategies appear to have potential, either on theoretical grounds or because they target known risk factors, but most of these have never been systematically implemented – let alone evaluated.

The public health approach to prevention taken in this document is intended to complement criminal justice-based approaches. The approach relies upon the use of population-based data to describe the problem, its impact and associated risk and protective factors, while drawing upon the scientific evidence for effective, promising and theoretically indicated prevention strategies. Part of the approach is also to ensure that all policies and programmes include in-built monitoring and evaluation mechanisms. At the same time, taking a life-course perspective will help to identify early risk factors and the best times to disrupt the developmental trajectories towards violent behaviour using a primary prevention approach. For successful primary prevention, early intervention is required that focuses on younger age groups.

Although pressing, the need for evidence and further research in all these areas in no way precludes taking action now to prevent both intimate partner violence and sexual violence. Those programmes that have evidence supporting their effectiveness should be implemented and, where necessary, adapted. Those that have shown promise or appear to have potential can also play an immediate role – provided strenuous efforts are made to incorporate at the outset rigorous outcome evaluations. It is only by taking action and generating evidence that intimate partner and sexual violence will be prevented and the field of evidence-based primary prevention of such violence will successfully mature.

International Issue – contributions from South Africa, Finland, Canada, France, Australia, France, Switzerland, Israel, Slovenia, Croatia, Portugal & USA