Types of gender-based violence
The table below shows that GBV can be physical, psychological or sexual.
Types of gender-based violence.
| Physical | Psychological | Sexual |
|---|---|---|
| Beating | Insulting | Harassment (any type of unwanted sexual attention) |
| Biting | Yelling | Touching sexual parts of the girl's/woman's body |
| Kicking | Recalling past mistakes | Touching in a sexual manner against the will of the girl/woman (e.g. kissing, grabbing, fondling) |
| Restraining | Constant criticism | Rape (forced sexual intercourse) |
| Pulling hair | Expressing negative expectations | Use of a weapon to force into a sexual act |
| Choking | Humiliation | Forced prostitution |
| Throwing objects | Denying opportunities | Sexual trafficking |
| Using weapons | Discriminating |
Stop reading for a moment and think about this from your own experience. Are any of these types of violence common in your community?
Although same-sex physical violence (even including stabbing) can be common among adolescents, the unequal power relationship results in most physical violence being directed at girls by boys.
Psychological GBV can be hidden, but you might uncover it if you ask some questions, for example, you could ask a very under-confident young girl whether she is receiving a lot of criticism from her family for being a girl.
You can see from the table above that sexual violence includes a wide variety of undesired sexual acts, ranging from sexual harassment, which includes unpleasant sexual comments or physical gestures, to sexual abuse, which is any type of unwanted sexual contact and includes all forms of sexual coercion (emotional, physical, and economic) against an individual.
Rape is defined as having sex with a woman or girl without her consent or with consent obtained under threat, force, intimidation, fear of bodily harm or misrepresentation. Many adolescents are forced to have sexual relations with men or boys they know and are assaulted if they refuse to have sex. If a boyfriend forces his girlfriend to have sex against her will this is called date rape while acquaintance rape is committed by someone who is known to the girl, such as a neighbour, teacher, religious leader, family friend or relative. But sometimes a stranger commits an act of sexual violence.
All types of GBV can have damaging consequences, as you will learn in the next section.