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Whether at home, on the streets or during war, violence against women and girls is a human rights violation of pandemic proportions that takes place in public and private spaces.
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Intimate partner violence is any behaviour by a current or former partner or spouse that causes physical, sexual or psychological harm. This is one of the most common forms of violence experienced by women globally.
Worldwide, 1 in 3 women have experienced physical or sexual violence — mostly by an intimate partner. When accounting for sexual harassment, this figure is even higher.
Worldwide, almost 3 in 5 women killed were killed by their partners or family in 2017.
Source Global and regional estimates of violence against women, WHO, 2013;
Global Study on Homicide 2019, UNODC, 2019
Almost three quarters of the world’s countries have outlawed domestic violence.
Source Women, Business and the Law 2018,
World Bank Group, 2018
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Sexual violence is any sexual act committed against the will of another person, either when this person does not give consent or when consent cannot be given because the person is a child, has a mental disability, or is severely intoxicated or unconscious as a result of alcohol or drugs.
These include, for example:
Sexual harassment includes non-contact forms, like sexual comments about a person’s body parts or appearance, whistling, demands for sexual favors, sexually suggestive staring, stalking, and exposing one’s sexual organs at someone. It also includes physical contact forms, like grabbing, pinching, slapping, or rubbing against another person in a sexual way.
Rape is non-consensual vaginal, anal or oral penetration of a sexual nature of the body of another person with any bodily part or object. This can be by persons known or unknown to the survivor, within marriage and relationships, and during armed conflict.
Approximately 15 million adolescent girls (aged 15 to 19) worldwide have experienced forced sex at some point in their life.
Source A Familiar Face: Violence in the lives of children and adolescents, UNICEF, 2017
of women have experienced sexual harassment since the age of 15 in the European Union.
Source Violence against women: An EU-wide survey, European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2014
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Human trafficking is the acquisition and exploitation of people, through means, such as force, fraud, coercion, or deception. This heinous crime ensnares millions of women and girls worldwide, many of whom are sexually exploited.
Source Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, UNODC, 2018
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FGM includes procedures that intentionally alter or cause injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. Beyond extreme physical and psychological pain, the practice carries many health risks, including death.
At least 200 million women and girls aged 15-49 have undergone FGM in 30 countries where representative data is available.
In most of these countries, the majority of girls were cut before age 5.
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Child marriage usually means an end to girl’s education, vocation and her right to make life choices. Research confirms that girls who marry in childhood are at greater risk for intimate partner violence than girls of the same age who marry later.
women and girls alive today were married before their 18th birthday.
girls in sub-Saharan Africa were married before age 18.
End violence against women and girls