To commemorate the International day on the Elimination of Violence Against Women and the 16 Days of Activism Campaign against Gender Violence, WHO has featured the work of WHO/HRP and CEHAT in Maharashtra, India on the health sector response to violence against women which involves implementation research study in 3 tertiary care hospitals in Aurangabad and Miraj and Sangli (each of which serves approximately 50,000 patients a month).

The feature story describes the implementation of the WHO guidelines on responding to intimate partner violence  and sexual violence through training of health workers – doctors, nurses and social workers in three departments – obstetrics and gynecology, general medicine and emergency medicine/casualty. The hospitals are teaching hospitals and run by the government and hence, the implementation research study is aiming to institutionalize the trainings of health workers not just in in-service, but also pre-service.  Results of this study are forthcoming.

Please find the link to the feature story on the WHO website and also the link to the video which features the doctors and nurses. In India, this is one of the few efforts that has tried to integrate VAW into existing health services, rather than establish stand-alone services, with a view to keeping sustainability and feasibility in mind and also strengthen not just the health work force capacity, but also the health system response.