More than a fourth of women have been victims of domestic violence: Lancet study

More than one in four women in the world have been victimw of domestic violence, a new study published in The Lancet suggests.

According to the medical journal's study using data from the World Health Organisation Global Database on the Prevalence of Violence Against Women, 27% of ever-partnered women in the age group of 15-49 had experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime.

Around one in seven (13 per cent) - up to 492 million women worldwide - has suffered violence at the hands of a male partner within the past year.

The present analysis reveals that governments are not in line to meet targets for eradicating violence against women. 

While the study has only estimated physical and sexual violence, WHO is working to strengthen measures of reporting psychological harmful behaviours by partners.

Earlier, the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has called for an end to violence against women in its Sustainable Development Goals (SDG5.2).

However, the study senior author Claudia García-Moreno, World Health Organisation opined that whilst progress has been made in the past 20 years, it is still grossly insufficient to meet the SDG target for eliminating violence against women by 2030.

The data used in this research were from the WHO Global Database on Prevalence of Violence Against Women and include over 300 eligible surveys and studies conducted between 2000 and 2018.

It covers 161 countries and areas, accounting for 2 million women aged 15 years and older, representing 90% of the global population of women and girls.

Statistical analysis allowed estimation of the prevalence of intimate partner violence over different age groups, regions, and time ranges to be calculated.

The study also draws attention to high levels of intimate partner violence experienced by adolescent girls and young women. In the youngest age cohort of women (15-19 years), 24% or almost one in four are estimated to have experienced intimate partner violence in their lifetime.

This study aims to provide baseline estimates for intimate partner violence against women on global, regional, and country-wide levels to help governments monitor their progress towards this target and inform policy and programming to prevent and respond to violence.

This new study uses population-based surveys, improved quality of data, and updated methods to provide current prevalence estimates of intimate partner violence across the world, up to and including the year 2018, reporting that one in four ever-partnered women experience violence from intimate partners alone. 

Meanwhile, the study revealed that the true prevalence of violence that these women are subjected to by an intimate partner is likely to be even higher as the estimates are based off women's self-reported experiences and given the sensitive and stigmatised nature of the issue.