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This book seeks to penetrate the silence on a taboo topic with an array of sources to shed light on gender violence in sub-Saharan Africa, a controversial topic gaining increasing exposure in human rights arenas. December Green analyzes acts of gender violence as they occur in one region, to uncover the dynamics that both perpetuate the abuses and enable women to survive them. She compares the effects of gender violence throughout sub-Saharan Africa to illustrate the range of experiences between and within the countries of the region, and she describes gender violence as itself a multilayered phenomenon operating within three contexts: the family, the economy, and the state. This study offers a unique perspective on human rights violations because instead of focusing only on the abuses themselves or describing how African women can be "saved", Green recognizes women's agency as an essential aspect of the study of gender violence. She discusses the variety of ways in which African women utilize formal and informal power structures to resist gender violence covertly and overtly, at the individual, inter-group, national, and international levels.