Beyond Fear: Social Work Strategies for Protecting Women from Femicide

Beyond Fear: Social Work Strategies for Protecting Women from Femicide is a groundbreaking guide for practitioners, policymakers, and students committed to ending gender-based violence. Femicide — the gender-motivated killing of women and girls — is one of the gravest human rights violations of our time. Yet, social workers often face the challenge of responding with limited resources, fragmented systems, and immense personal responsibility.

This book equips readers with clear frameworks, practical tools, and real-world strategies to identify risk, protect survivors, engage communities, and advocate for systemic change. Each chapter blends research, case studies, and survivor-centred approaches with ready-to-use checklists, safety plans, and decision trees.

From crisis intervention and lethality assessment to community prevention, legal advocacy, and organisational readiness, Beyond Fear is both a practical manual and a call to action. It insists that social work must be central to femicide prevention and that survivors deserve nothing less than coordinated, compassionate, and effective protection.

Whether you are a frontline social worker, a student of social work and gender studies, or a policymaker seeking reform, this book provides the knowledge and tools needed to move from response to prevention — and from fear to justice.