Women and gun violence: Key Findings from Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), San Salvador (El Salvador) and Maputo (Mozambique)

Abstract

Since men constitute the majority of those who use and are victimised by guns worldwide, prevention and combat policies and programmes have been aimed almost exclusively at men and boys, paying scant attention to the roles and impacts of gun violence on women and girls. However, the continuum of violence experienced by women and girls in these contexts is a synthesis of the main social ingredients of violence and its cultural basis. Thus, alongside sound knowledge of men’s and boys’ involvement in gun violence, a clear understanding of women’s and girls’ needs, rights and vulnerabilities is essential to reduce gun violence in general. This report aims to contribute to fll this gap. This report will concentrate on the analysis of the typologies and motivations for the involvement of women and girls in armed violence (as direct agents who actively participate, or indirect agents who play supporting roles such as in the transportation of frearms, drugs or information), and identify the importance and symbolism which they attribute to frearms; the examination of the direct consequences (death and injuries) and some of the indirect effects of armed violence on the lives of women (guns as instruments of intimidation and sources of insecurity in situations of domestic violence as well as determinants for the condition of survivors or relatives of lethal victims of gun violence); the initiatives, formal and informal, led by women in these contexts in response to gun violence, namely efforts to improve arms control regulations.