One In Three Women Suffers Violence, Finds WHO Global Study
By Countercurrents.org
21 June, 2013
Countercurrents.org
More than a third of all women worldwide – 35.6% – will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, usually from a male partner, says the World Health Organisation (WHO) in the first comprehensive study of its kind.
According to the study, in two reports, 38% of all women murdered were killed by their intimate partners.
Violence has a profound effect on women's health. Some of the victims arrive at hospital with broken bones while others suffer pregnancy-related complications and mental problems.
The study finds the extent of attacks on women from the men with whom they share their lives, with 30% of women being attacked by partners.
Findings of the study are:
Of the women suffering violence, 42% sustain injuries that can bring them to the attention of healthcare staff. Often, that's the first opportunity for the violence in the home to be detected and for the woman to be offered help.
The highest levels of violence against women are in Africa , where nearly half of all women – 45.6% – will suffer physical or sexual violence.
In low- and middle-income Europe , the rate is 27.2%.
In high-income countries, 23.2% of women will suffer physical and/or sexual violence from a partner in their lives, their data from 81 countries shows.
Women are not necessarily safer in wealthier countries – a third of women, 32.7%, in high-income countries will experience violence at some stage in their life.
More sexual assaults and rapes by acquaintances or strangers are reported in high-income countries than elsewhere – 12.6% of women in wealthy countries will be sexually attacked by a non-partner in their life. In Africa , the rate is 11.9%, lower than wealthy countries.
Chart: Violence against women worldwide
Other key findings include:
Violence by an intimate partner is the most common type of abuse, affecting 30% of women across the globe.
Victims of non-partner attacks were 2.6 times more likely to experience depression and anxiety compared with women who had not experienced violence
Those abused by their partners were almost twice as likely to have similar problems.
Victims were more likely to have alcohol problems, abortions and acquire sexually transmitted diseases and HIV
The study calls for toleration of such attacks worldwide to be halted.
New guidelines, the study says, must be adopted by health officials around the world to prevent the abuse and offer better protection to victims.
The reports on partner and non-partner violence against women were released by the WHO, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC).
Its authors say it is the first systematic study of global data, detailing the impact of the abuse on both the physical and mental health of women and girls.
Women who have suffered violence from a partner (%) |
|||
WHO region |
Prevalence |
||
Low and middle-income regions |
|
||
AFRICA (Botswana, Cameroon, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe) |
36.6% |
||
AMERICAS (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Bolivia) |
29.8% |
||
EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN ( Egypt , Iran , Iraq , Jordan , Palestinian territories) |
37.0% |
||
EUROPE (Albania, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Lithuania, Rep of Moldova, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine) |
25.4% |
||
SOUTH-EAST ASIA ( Bangladesh , East Timor , India , Burma , Sri Lanka , Thailand ) |
37.7% |
||
WESTERN PACIFIC ( Cambodia , China , Philippines , Samoa , Vietnam ) |
24.6% |
||
High income(Australia, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, US) |
23.2% |
||
Women who have suffered violence from someone who was not their partner (%) |
|||
Low and middle income |
|
||
Africa |
11.9% |
||
Americas |
10.7% |
||
Eastern Mediterranean |
No data |
||
Europe |
5.2% |
||
South-East Asia |
4.9% |
||
Western Pacific |
6.8% |
||
High income |
12.6% |
||
Source: WHO, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, South African Medical Research Council
The study says: "Fear of stigma" prevents many women from reporting sexual violence.
It stresses that health officials around the world need to take the issue "more seriously", providing better training for health workers in recognizing when women may be at risk of violence and ensuring an appropriate response.
The WHO says it will start implementing new guidelines together with other organizations at the end of June.
Sarah Boseley, health editor, The Guardian, reported on June 20, 2013 :
The two reports – one on the prevalence of violence, and the other offering guidelines to healthcare staff on helping women – are the work of Dr Claudia Garcia-Moreno, lead specialist in gender, reproductive rights, sexual health and adolescence at WHO, and Professor Charlotte Watts, an epidemiologist who specializes in gender, violence and health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
"These findings send a powerful message that violence against women is a global health problem of epidemic proportions," said Dr Margaret Chan, director general of the WHO. "We also see that the world's health systems can and must do more for women who experience violence."
"For the first time we have compared data from all over the world on the magnitude of partner violence and sexual violence by non-partners and the impact of these sorts of violence on health," said Garcia-Moreno. These included HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, depression, women turning to alcohol, unwanted pregnancies and low-birthweight babies.
There were variations in the rates of violence against women in different regions of the world but, said Garcia-Moreno, "in whatever region we looked at, it is unacceptably high".
The authors say that their previous research shows that better-educated women are less likely to suffer violence, as are those who have jobs, although not in all regions.
There is a need to tackle social norms, said Watts . "What are society's attitudes concerning the acceptability of certain forms of violence against women?" she asked. "In some societies is it not OK – but not all."
"I think the numbers are a wake-up call for all of us to pay more attention to this issue," said Garcia-Moreno. Over the past decade there had been increasing recognition of the problem, she said, but "one has to recognize that it is a complex problem. We don't have a vaccine or a pill."
"But if you see a woman coming back several times with undisclosed injuries, you should be asking about domestic violence," said Garcia-Moreno. "When I was training in medical school, it wasn't something you learned or knew about. Years later, I was sometimes in a situation where I could tell there was something else going on in the woman I was interviewing, but didn't have any sense that domestic violence was the issue. Now I think I would handle the interview very differently."
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