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The IPPNW is a non-partisan federation of various national medical groups from over 63 countries. The organization represents physicians, medical students, healthcare professionals, and other concerned stakeholders.

• "it is not surprising that gender-based violence should become an issue; having been categorised as a human rights violation, one which garnered significant attention, it could not be easily ignored or brushed aside as a ‘private’ matter. Still, approaching gender-based violence as a humanitarian issue required some translation. Humanitarians are primarily concerned with saving lives and relieving suffering; humanitarianism of the sort practised by MSF is most significantly focused on health, and the lives and wellbeing of populations."
• "I argue that the shift to gender-based violence as the exemplary humanitarian problem could not have happened without the prior move to medicalise gender-based violence, and render it a medical condition like all others."
• "Approaching gender-based violence as a medical or health issue alters how violence is both approached and understood; that is, rather than understanding gender violence in the context of gendered relations of power, or as part of larger histories and expressions of inequality which are inseparable from histories of class or race or colonialism, this type of medicalisation transforms gender-based violence into an emergency illness, requiring immediate intervention."

This article was created by Dr. Scott Gabriel Knowles, PhD, an associate professor and department head of the Department of History, Center for Science, Technoloy, and Society at Drexel University. Dr. Knowles earned both his Bachelor of Arts degree in History and Philosophy and his Master of Arts degree in History from The University of Texas at Austin. He later earned his Doctorate degree in History of Science, Medicine, and Technology from Johns Hopkins University. 

His research is focused primarily on risk and disaster with interests in modern cities, technology, and policies. He has authored several publications. He also currently serves as a faculty research fellow of the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware and is a member of the Fukushima Forum collaborative research community.