Women Victims of Violence Aided

Clients are screened for gender violence when they come for family planning services.

A New York city social worker has been key to the establishment of programs to assess, intervene with and treat women who are victims of violence in South America, services that have already spread to other Latin countries.

Lynne Stevens's work for the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) began nearly three years ago when the organization realized that many female victims of violence were not able to effectively use family planning services if they were being battered and had little control over their lives.

IPPF, which has 46 affiliates in the Western Hemisphere, asked Stevens, an expert on gender violence, to conduct a seminar on the subject and soon afterward hired her as a consultant to develop a gender violence program.

With about $25,000 from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, IPPF was able to begin a pilot program at four family planning clinics in Caracas, Venezuela. With Stevens's help, materials were written, referral sources developed and a part-time coordinator hired so clients at the clinics could be screened when they came for family planning services.

Stevens went there for a week of in-depth training so the staffs of about 150 people at the clinics would understand what questions to ask, how to respond if women said they were victims of violence or sexual abuse and how to make referrals.

Two of the clinics have been able to hire psychologists to do assessments to determine the types of violence, how violence has affected clients psychologically and how it is affecting their children. The psychologists also can see the women in groups for battered women, those who have been raped and those sexually abused as children.

With the gender violence program in place, the organization in Caracas was able to play an important role in lobbying successfully for passage of a statute to criminalize violence against women. Women are referred to free or low-cost attorneys for counsel. The organization intends to hire a lawyer so women can get legal advice about their rights.

The clinics see about 5,000 new clients yearly, about 17 percent of whom have been subject to violence, according to initial research.

The IPPF has obtained $2.25 million to expand the gender violence program to other countries — $750,000 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and $1.5 million from the European Commission. Some of the money will be used for programs at three clinics in the Dominican Republic and six in Peru. Groups in other nations, some outside the IPPF, have indicated much interest in similar programs, said Stevens.

"I think the International Planned Parenthood Federation is committed to this," said Stevens. "I hope eventually more and more affiliates will see this as integral to being reproductive care providers."

Stevens, 53, has been a gender violence trainer and educator for years, having trained health care providers in hospitals, in courses at Cornell University's medical school and at conferences.

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Copyright NASW Press, 1998