The Indo-Pacific region faces frequent and intense social, political, and environmental events (herein described as shocks), including conflicts, health emergencies, economic crises, and disasters, that can increase the risk of violence against women (VAW). Yet the region is underrepresented in global research that examines the impact of these events on VAW. This scoping review identifies and analyses published peer-reviewed literature on the impact of shocks on patterns of VAW in the Indo-Pacific region between 1993 and 2024. Our review includes 203 studies from 5 databases comprising books, research articles, and chapters. Health emergencies, particularly COVID-19, accounted for the largest portion of shocks studied, followed by armed conflict and earthquakes. The findings indicate that social, political, and environmental events consistently heighten all forms of VAW, especially domestic violence, intimate partner violence, and sexual violence. The review found limited research across the region with 7 countries (of 46) informing the majority of studies: These countries were not necessarily those countries most affected by these events however. Based on these main findings, we argue that localized research on the impacts of these events on VAW is urgently needed to inform gender-responsive policies that can enhance preparedness and protection in the most affected communities.
Online violence against women (OVAW) is a growing global problem with deepfakes in gender-based violence as one manifestation of this that has recently attracted considerable attention. This scoping review aims to explore emerging complexities in current academic understandings of deepfake in relation to its use in gender-based violence. The review considers how these issues impact and shape what is currently known about deepfakes in relation to OVAW. Articles were collected between July and September 2024 and then filtered drawing on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Review guidelines. Six research databases were searched using 12 search terms compiled by three of the article authors. This resulted in a total number of 3148 articles that were filtered to identify 397 articles that were reviewed in full. The subset was further filtered in order to focus on psychology and the social sciences resulting in a total of 64 articles for analysis. As psychology and the social sciences begin to capture the implications of deepfake creation and dissemination, in the context of online sexual violence, there is a need to investigate how deepfakes are used to silence women in public spaces online, as well as empirically acknowledging the inherent gendered systemic discriminations within deepfake technology and its uses. While important, research must move beyond perceived credibility and detection techniques of deepfakes and toward an analysis of intersectional power dynamics at play in this form of gender-based violence.
Psychologically traumatic experiences can have long-lasting physical and mental health effects on pregnant people, increasing the risk of adverse pregnancy, childbirth, and neonatal outcomes. The effect of maternal psychological trauma, assessed prenatally, on offspring outcomes throughout development is understudied. This secondary analysis of a systematic review investigated the scope of research examining links between prenatally assessed maternal trauma and offspring outcomes to identify areas of focus and those needing further investigation. Of 576 studies identified in the systematic review, 80 included offspring measures. Of these, 70 investigated associations between maternal trauma and offspring outcomes. We examined these studies for the type of maternal psychological trauma (including post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD]), type and timing of assessment of offspring outcomes, and regional variations reported. Most studies used a cross-sectional assessment of offspring outcomes (80%). The most common type of offspring outcome was birth or neonatal outcome (n = 40), which aligned with the most frequently examined time period. Interpersonal trauma (n = 41) and general trauma (n = 41) were the most common maternal trauma types examined prenatally, followed by childhood abuse (n = 37). Only 31.4% of studies measuring offspring outcomes included data on maternal PTSD status. Future research should longitudinally measure the impact of maternal psychological trauma on offspring outcomes through childhood and adolescence, providing insights for clinicians and policymakers. Pregnancy represents a critical period for the assessment and treatment of psychological trauma/PTSD, and further research will improve two-generation interventions across development to improve family health and well-being.

