Nearly 840 million women, or roughly one in every three globally, has experienced intimate partner or sexual violence during their lifetime, according to a landmark report released on Wednesday by the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations (UN) partners.

In the past 12 months alone, 11% or 316 million women who have ever been partnered were subjected to physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner, experts involved with the report said.

“Worryingly, this violence starts early, affecting 16% of adolescent girls aged 15 to 19. That is 12.5 million adolescent girls around the world are subject to this violence by a husband or an intimate partner before their 20th birthday,” said Lynnmarie Sardinha, Technical Officer at WHO’s Department of Sexual, Reproductive, Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing.

Progress on reducing intimate partner violence has been painfully slow with only 0.2% annual decline over the past two decades.

“Violence against women is one of humanity’s oldest and most pervasive injustices, yet still one of the least acted upon,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “No society can call itself fair, safe or healthy while half its population lives in fear. Ending this violence is not only a matter of policy; it is a matter of dignity, equality and human rights. Behind every statistic is a woman or girl whose life has been forever altered,” he said.

While there are some geographical differences in rates, violence against women and girls happens in virtually every country. Elderly women, women with disabilities, and those living in humanitarian settings are especially vulnerable.

For the first time, the report also includes national and regional estimates of sexual violence by someone other than a partner. This report also documents that 8% of women and girls globally have been subjected to sexual violence by someone other than a husband or partner, or non-partner sexual violence.

While this might seem a small number compared to intimate partner violence, it translates to 263 million girls and women worldwide.

“We know that the actual prevalence of this violence is much higher because of the stigma that is related to reporting on this violence, the negative repercussions of reporting, the victim blaming attitude, and also the additional measurement challenges, because we know that surveys in different countries measure sexual violence in different ways,” said Sardinha.

Widespread, lifelong and intergenerational risks

 The new WHO report synthesizes data between the years 2000 and 2023. It includes data from 168 countries on intimate partner violence and from 140 countries for sexual violence by non-partners, involving women and girls aged 15 years and older.

“The availability of data across these many countries is a real milestone,” said Dr Jeremy Farrar, Assistant Director-General, Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and Control, WHO at a press briefing.

Women and girls who are subjected to sexual violence face unintended pregnancies, carry a higher risk of acquiring sexually transmitted infections and experiencing depression.

In addition, children growing up in homes where the mother is at the receiving end of emotional, physical and sexual violence are more likely to face mental and physical challenges, according to latest research.

“Children who are exposed to watching their mothers be abused, or they themselves are abused, are much more likely to grow up… to either experience violence or perpetrate violence themselves,” said Avni Amin, Unit Head for Rights and Equality across the Life course at WHO.

See related story: How Intimate Partner Violence Affects Children

Funding cuts make solving the global problem a challenge

While violence occurs in every country, women in the least-developed, conflict-affected, and climate-vulnerable settings are disproportionately affected. For example, Pacific island nations (excluding Australia and New Zealand) reported a 38% prevalence of intimate partner violence in the past year, more than three times the global average of 11%.

Even as evidence is mounting on the effectiveness of strategies to prevent violence against women, the funding for such initiatives is declining.

Even before this year’s recent crisis, as of 2022, only 0.2% of the global development aid was allocated to programmes focused on the prevention of violence against women.

The crisis has become all the more acute with the sharp cutbacks in global health funding by rich donors, including but not limited to the United States’ dismantling of USAID.

Moreover, some of the hardest hit services have been programmes on sexual and reproductive health, which are an important entry point for survivors of violence to access the care that they need.

“In a shrinking aid climate, governments must step up allocation of domestic financing for prevention and response and response to violence against women must be integrated into budgets of health education and social protection sectors to ensure sustainable financing at scale,” said Amin. He echoed calls for national governments to fill in more of the gap.

A call for action — and accountability

While more countries than ever are now collecting data to inform policies, significant gaps remain, WHO said.

The report was accompanied by the launch of the second edition of the ‘RESPECT Women: preventing violence against women framework,’ that is a framework meant to guide policymakers on policies to deal with violence against women and girls.

Among other actions, the framework asks countries to strengthen survivor-centered health, legal and social services. It also asks countries to invest in data systems to track progress and reach the most at-risk groups. Enforcing laws and policies already in place to empower women and girls is another priority area.

This is the second such report by the WHO. The first one looked at the data between the years 2000 and 2018 and was released in 2021.

“These are the second available estimates for violence against women in the reporting period of the SDGs 2015 to 2030. The results highlight a tragic reality for women and girls worldwide,” said Farrar.

The report has been released ahead of the ‘International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and Girls’ that is marked on 25 November.

“Empowering women and girls is not optional, it’s a prerequisite for peace, development and health. A safer world for women is a better world for everyone,” said Tedros.

Image Credits: Unsplash/PaaZ PG, Violence against women prevalence estimates, 2023.