WHO report - almost a third of women experience violence

[ArabellaSaurus]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/women-and-girls/almost-a-third-of-women-experience-physical-or-sexual-viole/

Report out last week.

https://www.who.int/news/item/19-11-2025-lifetime-toll--840-million-women-faced-partner-or-sexual-violence

Link to report

And the other two thirds aren’t telling?

Do we think it’s only 5% in Europe? Really?

That is in one year.

'The rates of the Past 12 months prevalence of intimate partner violence among ever-married/-partnered women 15 years and older among the United Nations SDG regional and subregion classifications are ranked below from highest to lowest prevalence:

Oceania (excluding Australia and New Zealand): 38%
Central and Southern Asia: 18%
Southern Asia – 19%
Least Developed Countries – 18%
Sub-Saharan Africa – 17%
Small Island Developing States – 17%
Northern Africa and Western Asia – 14%
Northern Africa – 16%
Oceania (including Australia and New Zealand) – 13%
Eastern and South-Eastern Asia – 8%
Latin American and the Caribbean – 7%
Europe and Northern America – 5%'

However, it's well known that sexual violence is under reported.

This was a robust statement up until the last line:

'Violence against women is one of humanity’s oldest and most pervasive injustices, yet still one of the least acted upon," said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. "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. 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."'

What counts as violence?

What about indecent exposure or men masturbating where you can’t escape? Terrifying and disgusting even if not physically damaging.

i suppose counting clear cut cases establishes a baseline. But it’s important not to lose sight of the countless acts of harm that virtually all women suffer leaving us constantly wary of potential threats

Have I read it wrong? It says the study included data for both partner violence and non partner violence but only gives the figures for partner violence? Those stats above are for partner violence in the last year. Then one third of all women experience partner violence over their lifetime. I missed the stats for non partner somewhere?

Thank you for the clarification.
There were several good statements about the lack of funding to address such a ubiquitous human rights issue.

Seriously?!

Wow.

The Press release is a little confusing, yes. I've downloaded the report and will read later. It's 164 pages, so quite a lot of info to parse.

Bless you. I don’t want to set you homework but if you are reading it anyway I’d be very interested in those stats. Thanks!

' This report focuses on two forms of violence against women: (i) physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence and (ii) non-partner sexual violence.'

• Review is looking at both previous 12 month incidence and lifetime incidence.
• Review is looking at females aged 15 and older, and females aged 15-49
• Review is looking at intimate partner violence and non-partner violence

Also looks at forms of violence in group (i), and place of occurrence in group (ii).

For intimate partner violence:

' Physical intimate partner violence is operationalized as: acts that can physically hurt you, including being slapped or having something thrown at you that could hurt you; being pushed or shoved; being hit with a fist or something else that could hurt; being kicked, dragged or beaten up; being choked or burnt on purpose; and/or being threatened with or actually having a gun, knife or other weapon used against you.

Sexual intimate partner violenced is operationalized as: being physically forced to have sexual intercourse when you do not want to; having sexual intercourse out of fear of what your partner might do or through coercion; being made to have sexual intercourse when you are unable to consent (e.g. under the influence of alcohol or drugs); and/or being forced to do something sexual that you consider humiliating or degrading'

For non-partner violence:

'Non-partner sexual violence

Definition A woman’s self-reported experience of one or more acts of sexual violence by someone other than a current or former husband or male intimate partner since the age of 15 years.

Sexual violence refers to being forced, coerced, threatened or intimidated to perform any unwanted sexual act. This could include rape, attempted rape, unwanted sexual touching or non-contact forms of sexual violence. Some surveys used the terms “rape” or attempted rape” as their only measure of non-partner sexual violence. To avoid further underestimation of an already highly underreported form of violence, the statistical modelling adjusted for the use of this narrow definition (see Fig. 3.1 in subsection 3.2 for further details). Some surveys used and reported on a varied number of acts which adjustments were not possible.'

There is extensive explanation of methodology, how that differs between countries, and how its changed over time.

I'll pull out some stats:

Intimate Partner Violence

'Globally, 25.8% (UI 23.7–28.8%) of ever married/-partnered women of reproductive age (15–49 years) are estimated to have been subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence at least once in their lives'

' Globally, it is estimated that 13.7% (UI 11.8 16.6%) of ever-married/-partnered women aged 15–49 years have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner within the past 12 months'

'Adolescent girls and younger women are at the highest risk of physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner'

Lifetime intimate partner violence - global ranges

Highest - Melanesia -57.7%
Lowest - Southern Europe 15.5%

' In the SDG regional classification group of least developed countries the prevalence of lifetime physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence against ever-partnered/ married women aged 15–49 years was substantially higher than the global average'

Non Partner Sexual Violence

'There are wide variations in reported prevalence of non-partner sexual violence; the actual prevalence of non-partner sexual violence is likely to be much higher than the reported and estimated prevalence. This is related to the differing levels of reporting between countries, associated in part with stigma and fear of harm resulting from disclosure and significant measurement challenges,'

'It is estimated that 8.4% (UI 6.6–11.6%) of women aged 15–49 years globally have been subjected to sexual violence from someone other than a current or former husband or male intimate partner at least once since the age of 15 years'

'... the prevalence of non-partner sexual violence varies by region and the regional prevalence patterns are different to those for intimate partner violence, with higher reported estimates of non-partner sexual violence largely in upper middle- and higher-income regions.'

Highest - Oceania at 18.0%
Western Europe - 17.8%

'#MeToo and other national movements – such as #Ni Una Menos in Latin America, #BalanceTonPorc in France, #Nopiwouma in Senegal, #EndRapeCulture and #AmINext in South Africa, #AssaultPolice in Egypt, Talʾat in the occupied Palestinian territory and #EndFemicideKE in Kenya, among many others – have played an important role in building public awareness of sexual violence.'

'In 2023, almost one in three women (840 million) have been subjected to physical or sexual violence, or both, by an intimate partner or sexual violence by a non-partner, at least once in their lives – a number that has remained largely unchanged for more than two decades.'

'Violence prevention and reduction strategies with some degree of evidence of effectiveness documented in the RESPECT framework include community mobilization and group education with men and women to change harmful social norms, including on the acceptability of violence against women and girls. Other interventions include the economic and social empowerment of women; parenting support interventions to prevent child abuse; promotion of safe schools; and improving education and employment for women and men.'

' In 2022, official development assistance (ODA) for the prevention of violence against women and girls was 0.2% of overall aid and development funding. In the five year period 2018–2022, ODA for prevention of violence against women decreased by 13% even as ODA increased overall during that period [78,79]. In 2025, there have been further cuts to this funding.'

These numbers do seem strange as in most reports South Africa features as one of the most violent countries for women.

But maybe that is violence by non partners.

Grouping countries into blocks doesn't help.

Or whether they are trying to prove their theory is that underdevelopment is the contributing factor, rather than the culture.

Sounds pretty low tbh. But that said, it's clear that some countries experience vastly greater amounts of VAWG. Going by the other thread about the protests in SA, they experience 15 femicides a day. That's more in a week than the UK sees in a year!

Thank you @ArabellaSaurus . Those figures are shocking. And I agree with the suspicion of under-reporting.

Arabella pointed out it was per year which makes much more sense.

The report goes into some detail on under reporting and methodology. The percentages also have margins of error.

The report has gathered data from different studies, with sometimes differing methodology etc

Thank you for this .I have to say I found the way the figures were presented a bit confusing. We are seeing an increase in the numbers of old women being killed and this was not reflected. Likewise eg the horrific rapes and sexual violence in DRC. Percentages don’t seem to reflect the reality of all women and One third seems smaller than I would have expected. But useful to have something.

'It is estimated that 8.4% (UI 6.6–11.6%) of women aged 15–49 years globally have been subjected to sexual violence from someone other than a current or former husband or male intimate partner at least once since the age of 15 years'

That doesn't seem plausible at all. Have they got the decimal point in the wrong place?

I was looking at another study yesterday that did a similar thing to this "aged 15–49 years [...] at least once since the age of 15 years" which is an odd way of counting because a 15 year old will be reporting incidents in 1 year (or possibly 1 day), whereas a 49 year old will be reporting whether it's happened over the course of 34 years.

Agreed, missing out the under 15s and over 50s means it's massively undercounting.