‘The public health turn on violence against women’: analysing Swedish healthcare law, public health and gender-equality policies

Abstract

This article focuses on policy and law concerning violence against women as a public health issue. In Sweden, violence against women is recently recognized as a public health problem; we label this shift "The public health turn on violence against women". The new framing implies increased demands on the Swedish healthcare sector and its' ability to recognise violence and deal with it in terms of prevention and interventions. The aim was to describe and discuss the main content and characteristics of Swedish healthcare law, and national public health and gender-equality policies representing the public health turn on violence against women. Through discursive policy analysis, we investigate how the violence is described, what is regarded to be the problem and what solutions and interventions that are suggested in order to solve the problem. Healthcare law articulates violence against women as an ordinary healthcare issue and the problem as shortcomings to provide good healthcare for victims, but without specifying what the problem or the legal obligation for the sector is. The public health problem is rather loosely defined, and suggested interventions are scarce and somewhat vague. The main recommendations for healthcare are to routinely ask patients about violence exposure. Violence against women is usually labelled "violence within close relationships" in the policies, and it is not necessarily described as a gender equality problem. While violence against women in some policy documents is clearly framed as a public health problem, such a framing is absent in others, or is transformed into a gender-neutral problem of violence within close relationships. It is not clearly articulated what the framing should lead to in terms of the healthcare sector's obligations, interventions and health promotions, apart from an ambivalent discourse on daring to ask about violence.

Evidence of Gender Violence Negative Impact on Health as a Lever to Change Adolescents’ Attitudes and Preferences towards Dominant Traditional Masculinities

“…The present study was conducted as an exploratory research with two objectives: (1) to analyze how attraction to violent masculinities showed in the context of the peer group can influence toxic relationships among adolescents, and (2) to analyze the preventive impact of knowing the harmful effects of toxic relationships and violent masculinities on health.…”

“…Increasingly younger women and girls are experiencing this reality. Due to the devastating effects of violence against women on women's health, it is increasingly being considered a public health issue [1].…”

Disclosing Gender-Based Violence: A Qualitative Analysis of Professionals’ and Women’s Perspectives through a Discursive Approach

“…While disclosure can be a door opener to support, publicising it as ‘the solution’ risks minimising the reality that, after disclosing, there may still be a long way ahead for women. The criticism has also been made that the focus on disclosure risks positioning it as a measure of success, disregarding the fact that success is dependent on what comes after women disclose and that unfortunately what comes after disclosure is not always what women require [ 4 ].…”

“…In most countries around the world, GBV has shifted from being mainly addressed by feminist civil society organisations to becoming recognised as a social problem for which the welfare system has a major responsibility [ 4 ]. In Spain, the 2004 Law on Protective Measures against Gender-based Violence details the responsibilities of different sectors, including social services, educational and legal systems, and healthcare services.…”

Sexual violence against girls in schools as a public health issue: a commentary on the case Paola Guzmán Albarracín v. Ecuador

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