With a focus on gang violence in El Salvador, Dr. Córdova’s book examines how organized criminal groups’ operations in the territories they control, and the incursion of the police and military, threaten women’s safety. The main argument establishes that gangs’ territorial control increases women’s daily risk of gender-based violence in the streets of neighborhoods and in the privacy of homes, and that this risk is perpetuated by diminished reporting rates due to widespread distrust in the police, largely resulting from increased police abuse associated with the militarization of public security. The consequences of these dynamics for women’s resistance, particularly implications for international migration, are also explored.

Dr. Córdova’s book project, supported by a 2022 Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Distinguished Scholar Award and a grant from the Kellogg Institute at the University of Notre Dame, contributes to the growing literature in political science on criminal violence and militarization by identifying some of the mechanisms that explain women’s increased risk of gender-based violence in territories controlled by organized criminal groups in the midst of state repression.

Dr. Abby Córdova's project builds on and contributes to this research by examining the evidence on the effects of women’s police stations on citizens’ attitudes toward the police and gender-based violence as well as impacts on the incidence of violence against women and reporting rates in the context of Brazil.

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About the Speaker

Dr. Abby Córdova is an associate professor of global affairs in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. Córdova’s research examines the consequences of inequality and marginalization for democracy, integrating topics related to violence against women, organized crime, militarization, and international migration in the context of Central America, Mexico, and Brazil. She was awarded the Harry Frank Guggenheim Distinguished Scholar Award in 2022.

Presented by the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies. Co-sponsored by the Feminist, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program, and the Gender and Security Sector Lab.