More than one in four women have experienced domestic violence within their lifetime, shocking new research has revealed.
Using data from the World Health Organisation Global Database on the Prevalence of Violence Against Women, which covers 90 per cent of women worldwide, new estimates indicate that, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, 27 per cent of ever-partnered women aged 15 to 49 had experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime.
The UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has called for an end to violence against women in its Sustainable Development Goals.
This study aims to provide baseline estimates for domestic violence against women on global, regional, and country-wide levels to help governments monitor their progress towards this target and inform policy and programming to prevent and respond to violence.
It also comes at a time when the consequences of brain injuries as a result of intimate partner violence are being more widely recognised and researched than ever before, with the hope of increasing support for survivors.
This present analysis reveals that governments are not in line to meet targets for eradicating violence against women.
“Whilst progress has been made in the past 20 years, it is still grossly insufficient to meet the SDG target for eliminating violence against women by 2030,” says study senior author Claudia García-Moreno, World Health Organisation.
“Intimate partner violence affects the lives of millions of women, children, families and societies worldwide.
“Although this study took place before the COVID-19 pandemic, the numbers are alarming and research has shown the pandemic exacerbated issues leading to intimate partner violence such as isolation, depression and anxiety, and alcohol use, as well as reducing access to support services.
“Preventing intimate partner violence from happening in the first place is vital and urgent. Governments, societies and communities need to take heed, invest more, and act with urgency to reduce violence against women, including by addressing it in post-COVID reconstruction efforts.”
The data used in this research were from the WHO Global Database on Prevalence of Violence Against Women and include over 300 eligible surveys and studies conducted between 2000-2018. It covers 161 countries and areas, accounting for 2million women aged 15 years and older, representing 90 per cent of the global population of women and girls. Statistical analysis allowed estimation of the prevalence of intimate partner violence over different age groups, regions, and time ranges to be calculated.
The estimates suggest that in 2018, up to 492million women aged 15 to 49 years experienced intimate partner violence in the past 12 months, equating to 13 per cent or one in seven women.
The study also draws attention to high levels of intimate partner violence experienced by adolescent girls and young women.
In the youngest age cohort of women (15 to19 years), 24 per cent or almost one in four are estimated to have experienced intimate partner violence in their lifetime.
The prevalence of recent/current intimate partner violence was highest among ever-partnered adolescent girls and young women aged 15 to 19 and 20 to 24 years, with 16 per cent – or one in six – experiencing intimate partner violence in 2018, within the past 12 months of the survey.
“The high number of young women experiencing intimate partner violence is alarming, as adolescence and early adulthood are important life stages when the foundations for healthy relationships are built,” says Lynnmarie Sardinha, World Health Organisation, the lead author of this paper.
“The violence these young women experience has long-lasting impacts on their health and well-being.
“Intimate partner violence is preventable and more needs to be done to develop and invest in effective community and school-based interventions that promote gender equality and reduce young women’s risk of being subjected to violence from a partner.”
Regional variations by Global Burden of Disease classifications revealed that the lifetime prevalence of intimate partner violence among women aged 15 to 49 was highest in Oceania at 49 per cent, and Central Sub-Saharan Africa at 44 per cent.
The regions with the lowest lifetime intimate partner violence prevalence estimates were Central Asia – 18 per cent – and Central Europe with 16 per cent.
