Voices of Survivors: The Different Faces of Gun Violence (2011)

This publication features 16 testimonies acquired by IANSA of women survivors of gun violence. The testimonies are from a number of different countries and the violence occurs in various contexts and situations. The one common denominator in all of these stories is the misuse of guns.

Although men represent the majority of victims of death from armed violence as well as mostly being the perpetrators (over 90% of gun homicide victims are men; of the 50,000 people who commit suicide with a gun every year, 88% are men), those who survive them are impacted upon profoundly. The survivors’ testimonies demonstrate that women are psychologically, socially, economically and emotionally affected by the loss of a member of their family to gun violence, as are their families when it is they who are killed. They may also suffer further consequences as a result of a gunshot injury to themselves.