Nearly one in three women – totalling about 840 million around the world – have experienced intimate partner or sexual violence in their lifetimes, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a new report.

Released on Wednesday, it also found 316 million women and girls aged 15 and older were subjected to physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner over the past year.

Recommended Stories

list of 4 itemsend of list

That amounts to about 11 percent of all women and girls in that age bracket globally.

“Violence against women is one of humanity’s oldest and most pervasive injustices yet still one of the least acted upon,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement accompanying the findings.

“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.”

Released in advance of the UN’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls later this month, the WHO report analysed data from 168 countries collected between 2000 and 2023.

Despite the stark findings, the UN agency warned violence against women remains “a deeply neglected crisis” with efforts to address the problem “critically underfunded”.

It said only 0.2 percent of global aid was allocated to programmes focused on preventing violence against women in 2022.

That funding fell even further this year, the report said, as United States President Donald Trump slashed his country’s foreign aid and development contributions.

Advertisement

The WHO also warned that women and girls in conflict zones or living in other vulnerable situations are particularly at risk of experiencing intimate partner and sexual violence.

“In recent years, the rising number of armed conflicts, protracted crises and environmental degradation and disasters have underscored the increasing risk of violence against women living in these fragile contexts,” the report said.

“The risk of exposure to this violence is heightened by the resulting displacement and insecurity.”