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One in three women experience violence
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
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The problem of violence against women remains relevant in our time and requires global action to solve it.
Today, despite the efforts made, every third woman experiences violence (sexual or physical) from her partner, and about 7% of women have experienced violence from a stranger.
The problems of violence against women and ways to combat aggressive behavior receive much attention, but the level of violence, including partner aggression, rape, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, and trafficking in women remain extremely high and lead to serious consequences.
Approximately 100-140 million girls worldwide suffer from genital mutilation (in Africa alone, approximately three million girls suffer from this form of violence), and approximately 100 million girls under 18 are married against their will.
Many countries have made some progress in this area (establishing equality between men and women, providing for criminal liability), but in practice this has proven to be insufficient. Girls and women continue to be subjected to various forms of discrimination and violence, and have no access to legal or other health services, even under the laws in force in the country.
Recent data shows that not enough efforts are being made to prevent violence against women.
Professor of one of the London schools, S. Watts, noted that in the world every third woman has been subjected to aggressive and violent actions by a partner or a stranger, which indicates the need for additional measures to prevent such actions.
According to the professor, it is important to strengthen services that help women who have been subjected to violence, but this requires, first of all, ensuring full equality between the sexes.
It is assumed that work must be carried out both with aggressors and potential victims. It is necessary to change social norms in people's minds, according to which women are in a lower position than men.
Ahead of the 16 Days of Ending Violence against Women, a series of publications have been published calling on policymakers and health workers around the world to improve their prevention of violence against women and girls.
The series of publications included five main events:
- The government's priority should be to allocate the necessary resources to take measures to prevent violence against women.
- At the legislative level, it is necessary to change the ingrained discriminatory norms in the minds of people that put women in a lower position and contribute to violence.
- Additional investment is needed to strengthen non-violent behaviour, gender equality, and support for victims of violence.
- The role of the health, justice and other sectors should be strengthened, and policies for prevention and response measures should be developed and adopted in each of the sectors.
- The government needs to allocate the necessary funds for scientific research and development aimed at studying more effective measures to prevent violent acts.
Today, specialists have only some information about what measures can be effective in preventing violence against women. The task of specialists is to disseminate the available information and facilitate its implementation in practice.
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