Nearly 1 in 3 Women Experience Violence: Landmark Report From WHO

The numbers are stark – and startling.

Around the world, almost 1 in 3 women have experienced physical or sexual violence at least once in their lifetime, according to a new report released by the World Health Organization. That number has remained largely unchanged over the past decade, WHO said.

The report, which WHO says is the largest-ever study of the prevalence of violence against women, draws upon data from 161 countries and areas on women and girls age 15 and up collected between 2000 and 2018. So it does not account for the impact of the pandemic. Lockdowns and related restrictions on movement have led to widespread reports of a "shadow pandemic" — a surge in violence against women and girls around the world, as many found themselves trapped at home with their abusers.

The figures "really bring to the fore how widely prevalent this problem already was" even prior to the pandemic, said WHO's Dr. Claudia Garcia-Moreno, one of the report's authors. She says researchers won't know the pandemic's true impact on violence against women until they can conduct new population-based surveys again in the future.