The Reciprocal Influences of Gender-Based Violence Surveys and Public Policy: From Survey Design to Dissemination of Results. An Example from a Survey in the French Overseas Regions

Stephanie Condon , Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)
Sandrine Dauphin, Institut national d'études démographiques

Since the international call for the collection of statistical data on violence against women (VAW) emerged from the Forth international Women’s Conference in 1995, there has been a continuous effort in Europe and other parts of the world to collect data at national or regional levels. National policies and international agreements aiming to eradicate VAW rely on statistical knowledge about the causes and consequences of violence. In France, where there has been since the 2000s a succession of national campaigns, is one of the rare states that has produced two national surveys (2000 and 2015). In several overseas French territories, local elected representatives called for specific surveys for their islands with the expectation that the data would show the extent of the phenomenon and provide justification for the allocation of human and financial resources towards combating violence against women. This close link between scientific and political expectations raises methodological and ethical questions relating to survey design and how are the results presented and used. It is thus important to consider the social processes linking grassroots mobilization, political discourses surrounding issues related to VAW and the availability of research resources to set up statistical surveys. The case study here is the replication of the most recent questionnaire survey on gender-based violence in France, Virage, three overseas island territories – Reunion Island, Guadeloupe and Martinique (2018). To conduct this, we use a combination of survey data, documents relating to national and local policy and interviews with local policy decision-makers and practitioners.

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 Presented in Session P3. Migration, Economics, Policies, History