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Violence Against Women "Facts Everyone should Know"


Violence Against Women
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Violence Against Women

Facts everyone should know

Whether at home, on the streets or during war, violence against women and girls is a human rights violation of pandemic proportions that takes place in public and private spaces.

Explore how violence against women and girls manifests itself in physical, sexual and psychological forms.

Intimate Partner Violence

What is
intimate partner violence?

Intimate partner violence is any behaviour by a current or former partner or spouse that causes physical, sexual or psychological harm. This is one of the most common forms of violence experienced by women globally.

Fast Facts

1 in 3

Worldwide, 1 in 3 women have experienced physical or sexual violence — mostly by an intimate partner. When accounting for sexual harassment, this figure is even higher.

3 in 5

Worldwide, almost 3 in 5 women killed were killed by their partners or family in 2017.
Source Global and regional estimates of violence against women, WHO, 2013;
Global Study on Homicide 2019, UNODC, 2019

Laws must protect women

  • 3/4
    Almost three quarters of the world’s countries have outlawed domestic violence.
Source Women, Business and the Law 2018,
World Bank Group, 2018

Sexual Violence

What is
sexual violence?

Sexual violence is any sexual act committed against the will of another person, either when this person does not give consent or when consent cannot be given because the person is a child, has a mental disability, or is severely intoxicated or unconscious as a result of alcohol or drugs.

Sexually violent acts can take place in different circumstances and settings.

These include, for example:

  • Sexual harassment

    Sexual harassment includes non-contact forms, like sexual comments about a person’s body parts or appearance, whistling, demands for sexual favors, sexually suggestive staring, stalking, and exposing one’s sexual organs at someone. It also includes physical contact forms, like grabbing, pinching, slapping, or rubbing against another person in a sexual way.

  • Rape

    Rape is non-consensual vaginal, anal or oral penetration of a sexual nature of the body of another person with any bodily part or object. This can be by persons known or unknown to the survivor, within marriage and relationships, and during armed conflict.

Fast   Facts

15 million

Approximately 15 million adolescent girls (aged 15 to 19) worldwide have experienced forced sex at some point in their life.
Source A Familiar Face: Violence in the lives of children and adolescents, UNICEF, 2017

45% to 55%

of women have experienced sexual harassment since the age of 15 in the European Union.
Source Violence against women: An EU-wide survey, European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2014

Human Trafficking
and Sexual Exploitation

What is
human trafficking?

Human trafficking is the acquisition and exploitation of people, through means, such as force, fraud, coercion, or deception. This heinous crime ensnares millions of women and girls worldwide, many of whom are sexually exploited.

Fast Facts

72%

of all trafficking victims worldwide are women and girls.

4out of5

trafficked women are trafficked for sexual exploitation.
Source Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, UNODC, 2018

Female Genital
Mutilation

What is
female genital mutilation?

FGM includes procedures that intentionally alter or cause injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. Beyond extreme physical and psychological pain, the practice carries many health risks, including death.

Fast   Facts

200Million

At least 200 million women and girls aged 15-49 have undergone FGM in 30 countries where representative data is available.

Age5

In most of these countries, the majority of girls were cut before age 5.

Child Marriage

What is
the impact of child marriage?

Child marriage usually means an end to girl’s education, vocation and her right to make life choices. Research confirms that girls who marry in childhood are at greater risk for intimate partner violence than girls of the same age who marry later.

Fast   Facts

650Million

women and girls alive today were married before their 18th birthday.

Almost4in10

girls in sub-Saharan Africa were married before age 18.
End violence against women and girls

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