How do women cope with family violence?
Moving ahead in our understanding of international issues 2001; 55: 531] [Violence: a challenge for public health and for all 2001; 55: 597-9] Women who are abused by their partners are not simply passive victims, new research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, shows. Those that stay in an abusive relationship often do so because there is no social or practical support to help them, rather than simply as a result of low self-esteem. International research shows that in some parts of the world between 20 and 50 per cent of women will be physically or sexually assaulted by an intimate partner, and as many as one in five is assaulted during pregnancy. In 1993, The United Nations General Assembly adopted a declaration on the elimination of violence against women. A cross section of almost 500 women from Nicaragua’s second largest city, Len, were interviewed about their experiences of domestic violence. All the women were aged between 15 and 49. Of those who were married,
