As decades of political unrest and violence continue in her native Colombia, UConn public health sciences research associate and Ph.D. candidate Maria \u201cMayte\u201d Restrepo-Ruiz is studying whether women are more likely to be victims of intimate partner violence in an environment of ongoing armed conflict.<\/p>\n
Her work has unearthed disturbing accounts from Colombian women and has drawn the attention of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, an organization that provides research grants and fellowships to support the study of violence, aggression and dominance.<\/p>\n
‘I hope my research will provide some material to understand that political violence affects not only the direct victims but society as a whole in ways that are not as visible or clear.’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Restrepo-Ruiz emerged from a rigorous global peer-review competition as one of nine scholars to be chosen as Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Dissertation Fellows for 2020.<\/p>\n
\u201cColombia has one of the highest numbers of women who are assassinated by their partners in Latina America,\u201d Restrepo-Ruiz says. \u201cThe question is, why? What is the difference with other countries? And the Guggenheim Fellowship, they focus on understanding the impact of violence and the impact of conflict, so they were very interested in the topic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Restrepo-Ruiz has interviewed nearly 50 women who\u2019ve been displaced from other parts of Colombia to the capital city, Bogota. Because of COVID-19 she was not able to travel to Colombia as she had planned to conduct interviews with women who have been victims of the armed conflict. But she worked with community organizations during the summer to conduct the interviews via internet. Her dissertation\u2019s focus is on the links between political violence and intimate partner violence as well as the mental health impacts on women who have experienced these types of violence, such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot all of the women I interviewed have experienced intimate partner violence, but the majority have, and the majority also associate an increase of violence from their partners during times of conflict or after the conflict,\u201d Restrepo-Ruiz says. \u201cThere are not many studies around that. I\u2019m looking at Colombia specifically, but I think that it applies to many countries.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also seeks to determine whether the presence of political violence and a culture of seeing violence as normal can lead to a justice system that is unable or unwilling to protect its citizens. She says while Colombia does have strong laws against intimate partner violence, they\u2019re not reliably enforced, leaving an institutional framework that fails to support women\u2019s rights to live free of violence.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat peace requires is not just an agreement between the different forces, but also that individuals feel that they have safety,\u201d Restrepo-Ruiz says. \u201cWhat these women have said to me is that peace means safety, that they are safe outside the house, but also inside the house. And they don’t see that the justice system in Colombia is helping them to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Guggenheim Foundation is providing $20,000 to help support the writing of her dissertation. Restrepo-Ruiz also received support from the UConn Human Rights Institute<\/a> to conduct her research.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have had such support from my committee members, especially Jane Ungemack<\/a> and Steve Schensul<\/a>,\u201d Restrepo-Ruiz says. \u201cI have a large committee, too, and all of them are very supportive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her work won\u2019t stop with graduation, planned for May. Restrepo-Ruiz intends to work with human rights and women\u2019s organizations in Colombia to disseminate her findings.<\/p>\n
\u201cColombia is making efforts to implement a peace agreement that includes, among other things, a Truth Commission,\u201d Restrepo-Ruiz says. \u201cThis commission has the goal of clarifying what has happened within the armed conflict for the victims and demonstrating the impact of the political violence for the country. I hope my research will provide some material to understand that political violence affects not only the direct victims but society as a whole in ways that are not as visible or clear.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also plans to continue studying mental health effects of political and domestic violence, particularly the systematic barriers in the justice system and their connection to mental health, including some Connecticut-based research with public health sciences faculty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mayte Restrepo-Ruiz, a public health sciences research associate and Ph.D. candidate, is studying the connection between armed conflict and intimate partner violence, now with the support of Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":165791,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1868,1875,179],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2010],"class_list":["post-165789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meds","category-grad-school","category-uconn-health"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-12 14:28:01","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165789"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":165807,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165789\/revisions\/165807"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/165791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165789"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=165789"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=165789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}