Public acceptance of gender-based violence as torture

A consensus exists among both activists and scholars that gender-based violence among private individuals qualifies as torture as understood by the UN Convention Against Torture, as well as by other international legal frameworks addressing torture and ill-treatment. Although this growing agreement about the true nature of gender-based violence is encouraging, it neither necessarily nor automatically leads to public acceptance of this understanding. We use a survey experiment to examine six hypotheses about public perception of gender-based violence as torture. Analyzing a representative, random sample of US adults, we find that exposure to both expert and victim testimonials nearly doubles the likelihood of full acceptance of gender-based violence as torture, compared to a control group.