Background
Violence in specific contexts, including workplaces, is a major problem.
It is also acknowledged that violence against health care workers (VHCW)
tends to remain invisible in comparison to other forms of
violence.1
In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), VHCW has been reported from several
countries, acknowledging its endemic dimension, the negative impact on
health care workers (HCW) and services, a high level of tolerance to
non-physical violence and absence of policies to deal with violence,
contributing to the underreporting of the problem and its neglect in
health workforce planning.2,3
However, gender aspects of violence have not been properly addressed,
remaining the question as to what extent VHCW should be interpreted as
gender-based violence (GBV), a global public health problem with a
significant prevalence in developing countries.4,5
This letter revisits data reported previously in this Journal that
describe the typology and the perceived impact of VHCW at the health
services of the City of Lichinga in Mozambique during
2019.3 In this letter we attempt to understand if our
results on VHCW in Niassa can be considered as an example of GBV.
This was driven by the 2019 Centenary Conference of the International
Labour Organization which adopted a Convention, accompanying
Recommendations and a Declaration, to address, among other issues,
violence and harassment in the workplace. These documents acknowledged
that GBV and harassment disproportionately affect women and girls, and
recognize “that an inclusive, integrated and gender-responsive
approach, which tackles underlying causes and risk factors, including
gender stereotypes, multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination,
and unequal gender-based power relations, is essential to ending
violence and harassment in the world of work”
(https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C190).