Highlighting the costs of gender-based violence

Why should we put more resources towards violence prevention? First and foremost there are moral and human rights imperatives; there is the desire for more healthy and vibrant communities, better relationships and safer schools and workplaces. Gender-based violence is epidemic – it touches all of us and/or those close to us. It increases poverty and erodes public health, education and other social service agendas.

In addition, with estimates of the economic costs of violence so astoundingly high, a simple economic argument can be compelling for some legislators and leaders in the private sector to allocate more funds to prevention. Thus, the costs of gender based violence and the connections to the achievement of other goals offers a way forward to expand the number of laws and organizations that see reducing gender-based violence as both in their self-interest and as part of their community responsibilities.

What are some of the costs? There are direct costs, indirect costs and hidden or unquantifiable costs to gender-based violence. There are also lingering effects over the life-cycle, within families and across generations.

Some of the direct costs of gender-based violence include the spectrum of immediate healthcare, social and family service and criminal justice system costs (including police, courts, prisons, even private security). The estimated price tags, most likely underestimates due to underreporting of violence, are nonetheless profound. “Domestic violence in Canada is estimated to cost the country some $1.6 billion per year. In New Zealand, the cost of family violence in 1993 was at least $1.2 billion, more than the earnings from the export of wool” (Hayward). Even when we narrow the scope to violence against children, a recent report puts costs of child abuse in the United States at $94 billion every year, or $258 million a day (Levine). In the United States, “The health-related costs of rape, physical assault, stalking, and homicide by intimate partners exceed $5.8 billion each year. Of this total, nearly $4.1 billion are for direct medical and mental health care services and productivity losses account for nearly $1.8 billion” (CDC).

And these costs are only the tip of the iceberg. Indirect costs of violence include loss of income and lower productivity (for both victims and perpetrators) increased risk of sickness and poverty. The individual health effects alone are astounding, “victims of abuse have higher rates of unintended and rapid repeat pregnancy, significantly higher risk for sexually transmitted diseases; multiple mental health problems, depression, panic attacks and insomnia” (CDC). Further compared to women who have not experienced violence, battered women in the United States seek psychiatric care four to five times more often and attempt suicide five times more often (Heise et al.).

“Research also shows a correlation between domestic violence and arthritis; chronic neck, back and pelvic pain; migraine headaches; stomach ulcers; spastic colon; and other digestive diseases. The health impact does not stop there. Victims of domestic violence are more likely to use tobacco and other harmful substances and they rarely engage in improving their own health” (CDC).

Some of the hidden costs of gender-based violence include the fear, emotional pain and anxiety that millions suffer silently ever day – women, children and men. There are also the related, yet unreported, quality of life and civil rights issues, such as being isolated socially and economically, bullied, and restricted from “pursuit of happiness”. Although these may be hidden costs – the connections to gender-based violence are clear.

There is also the inter-generational transmission of violence for the millions who of individuals who were victims or witnesses of violence as children. Individuals who have experienced violence are more likely to drop out of school, have problems with drug addiction and other crimes, and to become perpetrators of violence themselves. For example, numerous studies in the United States indicate that rates of domestic violence are around ten times higher among men who experienced violence in childhood than among those who had not.

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Costs of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in the United States
United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/pub-res/ipv_cost/ipv.htm

Publication press release
http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/r030428.htm

Hayward, Ruth. Linking an End to Gender Violence with Gains for Additional Human Rights Concerns And Development Goals
http://www.un-instraw.org/en/research/mensroles/vss/vss_3_3.html

Heise, Lori L., Pitanguy, Jaqueline and Germain, Adrienne, “Violence against Women: The Hidden Health Burden”, World Bank Discussion Paper no. 255, Washington D.C. 1994

Levine, S “The Price of Child Abuse: Hidden Life, Long Costs”. U.S News & World Report, 9 April 2001 page 58.

Violence as an obstacle to Development, Inter American Development Bank (IADB)

The costs of social and domestic violence in Latin America – and how these cost are inhibiting adequate investment in poverty alleviation. http://www.iadb.org/sds/doc/SOCTechnicalNote4E.pdf