Gender-Based Violence in Ghana and the U.S.: Community v. System Approaches

• In Event: Roundtable: Domestic, Gendered, and Intimate Partner Violence

Abstract

Both the USA and Ghana have enacted policy and legal approaches to mitigate the prevalence of GBV; however, community led responses, albeit informal, also impact GBV in these settings. Thus, the intricate mix of institutional and community responses in each country ought to be explored. For example, as criticisms of the criminalization of gender violence in the U.S. gain support, alternative approaches to addressing this social problem have gained attention. Nonprofit and community-based organizations have argued for the abolition of carceral responses and advocated for increased resources to be invested within communities to prevent violence and support survivors. Many have endorsed practices such as restorative justice and transformative justice as ways of responding to violence. Tensions between community and formal system/institutional responses to gender based violence are not specific to the U.S., but each society’s historical and political contexts shape the framing, approach and response. This comparative analysis therefore examines the drivers and historical developments of each type of approach in each country, identifies strengths and limitations of both formal and informal responses, system- and community-based, to gender-based violence to better understand the cross-cultural responses and their impact on gender based violence and possible resolutions.

Authors

• Gina Amedeka, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Sarah Jane Brubaker, Virginia Commonwealth University