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Understanding Violence Against Women in Southeast Asia: A Group Approach in Social Justice Work

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Abstract

Using a liberatory group approach, women and men from three countries in Southeast Asia, Thailand, Cambodia, and among refugees of Burma, analyzed gender-based violence within their cultural contexts. Group members also discussed strategies for transforming systems supporting violence against women into structures of peace and gender justice. The author briefly describes the group model employed in the project, based on principles from liberation theory and feminist psychology. Themes emerging from the analyses generated by group members are also presented along with preliminary recommendations for social change at the personal, family, community, institutional, and societal levels.

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Correspondence to Kathryn L. Norsworthy.

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Norsworthy, K.L. Understanding Violence Against Women in Southeast Asia: A Group Approach in Social Justice Work. International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling 25, 145–156 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026285925426

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