The journal Violence Against Women has published online a study suggesting that a human rights approach is more holistic.  As I have blogged before, a human rights approach to violence against women prevention is common everywhere in the world except the United States.

What do you think?  Would the rape and domestic violence prevention movement benefit from a human rights approach?

The full citation and link to the abstract of the article from SafetyLit follows the jump.

“How Would That Help Our Work?”: The Intersection of Domestic Violence and Human Rights in the United States.

Morgaine K. Violence Against Women 2009; ePublished October 22, 2009.

Click here for the article or for the DOI:

(Copyright © 2009, Sage Publications)

This qualitative study explores whether individuals working within the domestic violence (DV) field in the United States have utilized a human rights framework and identifies potential benefits of this framework. Using the critique and experiences of women of color as a focal point, data were gathered through interviews with key individuals working with national and regional DV and human rights organizations. This article focuses on challenges within the mainstream DV movement and how a human rights approach could potentially ameliorate some of these concerns by supporting a more holistic approach to DV and increasing coalition building and community engagement.

When violence against women is described in international work it is seen as a human rights issue.  When violence against women is described in the United States it is typically framed as a “personal issue” to be addressed as a criminal matter.

I have heard Loretta Ross describe why we need to apply a human rights approach to our violence against women prevention work. (Click here to listen to a podcast.)

To create community and society level change, we must work beyond the individual framework that is pervasive in the United States.

In a new article in the journal Violence Against Women, Libal and Parekh explore issues about adopting a human rights framework for violence against women, as advocated by Evan Stark, in the United States.

A full citation and abstract from SafetyLit for this article appear after the jump.

Reframing Violence Against Women as a Human Rights Violation: Evan Stark’s Coercive Control.

Libal K, Parekh S. Violence Against Women 2009; ePublished October 15, 2009

Click here for a link to article on the journal’s website or the DOI

(Copyright © 2009, Sage Publications)

Evan Stark claims that partner-perpetrated physical abuse and other forms of violence against women ought to be understood as a human rights violation. The authors engage Stark’s rhetorically powerful political and analytical innovation by outlining one theoretical and one practical challenge to shifting the paradigm that researchers, advocates, and policy makers use to describe, explain, and remedy the harms of coercive control from misdemeanor assault to human rights violation. The theoretical challenge involves overcoming the public/private dichotomy that underpins liberal conceptions of human rights. The practical challenge involves using the human rights framework in the United States, given public indifference to human rights rhetoric or law, reluctance of U.S. policy makers to submit to scrutiny or justice-oriented processes under international law on issues of human rights and especially war crimes, and the consequent U.S. legacy of refusal to participate meaningfully in the international human rights process. The authors conclude that employing a human rights framework holds potential in the United States, but the paradigm shift Stark advocates will not materialize without widespread mobilization of interest in and understanding of human rights among domestic violence advocates and the society in general.