The Political and Social Perspectives of Intimate Partner Violence as a Human Rights Issue on Canadian and Brazilian Contexts

This study is a literature review that aimed to examine the literature on intimate partner violence related to human rights on Canadian and Brazilian contexts published between 2008 and 2013. The search was conducted through electronic databases PubMed, CINAHL, MEDLINE, and EMBASE, resulting in 24 articles: 11 on Brazilian context and 13 on Canadian context. It was done a critical analysis of the data collected. Findings were presented in 5 topics that emerged from the articles: women characteristics, reporting and help seeking behavior, legislation, strategies to deal with violence against women, and IPV and human rights.

is about the freedom and dignity of human beings, emphasizing that everyone has the same rights on both. Violence against women reflects gender disparities in a society, and it causes serious injuries which influence the way victims see themselves; resulting in the hurt of women's dignity; article 3 establishes that "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person" 15 . Women who experience violence perpetrated by their partner are not safe in their own house; and some violent acts can result in homicides, what means their right to life and security are stolen from them.
Although IPV is related to disrespect regarding many articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there are only a few studies addressing both issues: IPV and human rights. It is important to promote these discussions to deepen the knowledge in this field and also to recognize the importance of these issues.
Although there are relevant studies about IPV, it was not found any study assessing this problem as a Human Right issue, discussions about violence against women need to be deepened in the current society. Addressing IPV in a human rights perspective means to promote discussions in a global scope, where different nations work together to elaborate strategies to solve this problem.
Considering that, the purpose of this study was to examine the literature on intimate partner violence related to human rights on Canadian and Brazilian contexts published between 2008 and 2013. While the literature review is not systematic, it is sufficiently comprehensive to provide a theoretical backdrop to researches on intimate partner violence and human rights.

Method
This study is a literature review, discussing a topic of interest through the development of an analytic summary of the research findings related to it. A review of the literature has the purpose to identify what has been studied in certain field, which subject of study has not been solved in practice, and through this process, to elaborate strategies to solve this problem 17 .
For the preparation of this review the following steps were covered: establishment of objective; establishment of criteria for inclusion and exclusion of articles (sample selection); defining the information to be extracted from selected articles; analyzing the results; and discussing and presenting the results.   It does not present it. This situation also prejudices professionals who get stressed and can have a burnout.  It does not present it. more severe cases of violence than men 31 . The action to report the partner is conscious and always has a focus: situation or person 28 .

Girard (2009)
On Canadian context, it was presented that women report more commonly informal sources (i.e., family, friends, neighbors) than formal sources (i.e., health professionals and the police). However, the importance of almost all of the formal sources increased as the severity of the violence and control increased. Shelters and crisis centers were also reported by a notable proportion of women who experienced the most severe pattern of violence and control 32 .
There is only one article that discusses prevalence of IPV in Brazil, and it used the data collected by WHO in a multi culture research held in 2002. This study reports that the prevalence of IPV varies according to the region. In São Paulo, the most populous city in the country, the rate is 28.9% whereas in the region of Zona da Mata (15 cities belong to this region) the rate increases to 36,9% 20 .It emphasizes the need of more searches and publications to better evaluation of the real situation of the country, even there is still a low number of women who report the violence.
Both countries presented the importance of creating protective shelters to attend women who does not have social and financial support to leave the aggressor.
It is also necessary creating more public policies and women´s police services register the occurrence 19,31 .
The findings presented some reasons for women to report the violence: hope on the end of the violence, willing to have peace, intention to separate from their partner, expectations regarding the right to justice, and expectation of personal and children protection 28 .
Financial problems are related as important concerns to women who want to leave their violent partner. After leaving their violent relationship, they have extended use for resources, affording with costs to medical services, buying medical drugs and they also have much higher health-care utilizatio 40 .
A problem faced on the judicial system is the withdrawal of the complaint against the aggressor. Some reasons referred by the victims are: concerning to maintain the family, still having feelings for their partner, economic dependence of the aggressor, and worrying the judicial process 21,33 . Dropping the charge can contribute to make violence against women be seen as trivial by the perpetrator and it can fuel the prejudice 35 .

Legislation
This topic contains the most differences between the countries. Legislation influences the perception of the violence against women and their strategies to face the problem on the judicial system.

Strategy to Deal with Violence against Women
It was presented an innovated strategy to deal with violence against women: screening computer-assisted to IPV. This experiment was made with physicians and provided a discussion on IPV regarding the partner behavior. Using an instrument to screen IPV facilitated the discussion on this issue to health professionals and they did not miss an important sign of the violence when they examined the patients 29 . It succeeded in the experience and could work on Canadian and Brazilian health systems.
Another article discussed the screening for IPV. One article presented postpartum nurses´ perceptions of barriers to screening IPV, according to the study, screening sexual and physical abuse is not as often as it should be. The most important barrier is the lack of knowledge and language fluency 37 . It also presents that is important to implement screening policies and procedures in health unities to make sure professionals will accomplish the screening methods.

Intimate Partner Violence and Human Rights
Assessing violence against women within a Human Rights perspective implies to look at it as a global issue; for this reason, nations together are responsible for elaborating strategies to solve this problem considering violence against women as a social issue of political and global concern.
Seven of the eleven Brazilian articles retrieved used the term "human rights".
On the Canadian context, five of the thirteen articles used this term. Despite these articles presented the term human rights, none of them really discussed the consequences of IPV on a Human rights´ perspective, and the term was only used in a small piece of the introduction or discussion of the article.
Only one Canadian article discussed IPV in a global health perspective, through an expanded vision about the topic. An expanded vision about IPV not presenting a single culture or peace of the problem was made in one article, but this study discusses the violence against women in different countries, its implications on society, its costs to the government, risk factors and prevalence 38 .
These results demonstrate that there is a need of more research on this field to identify the perception of health professionals about human rights and its relation to health.

Conclusion
Although Brazil and Canada are economically, historically, and culturally much different; still both countries have similarities considering the characteristics of occurrence of IPV, as minorities increased risk of violence, characteristics of women, risk factors, and characteristics of region where the studies were carried out. Most differences are on legislation.
Findings highlighted that violence is a social issue, this behavior was constructed trough years and needs a change on society to be solved; it also allowed to identify an underdevelopment of research in this field. Only one Brazilian study presented statistical frequency of IPV cases, and the search was conducted by an international institution, and even some articles presented the term human rights, they did not explore the implication of intimate partner violence on human rights aspects. It is necessary more studies relating these topics and addressing the action of human rights organizations to contribute to stopping violence against women.