Global prevalence of intimate partner violence against women ‘concerning’
One in four women aged younger than 50 years reported at least one experience of intimate partner violence, with 13% having experienced it within the past year, according to an analysis published in The Lancet.
Researchers also determined that younger women and women who live in low-income countries are disproportionately affected by domestic violence.
“In the last decade, there has been a substantial increase in the number of nationally representative population-based surveys collecting data on intimate partner violence,” LynnMarie Sardinha, PhD, of the U.N. Development Programme-U.N. Population Fund-UNICEF-WHO-World Bank Special Programme of Research in Geneva and a research fellow in the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol in England, and colleagues wrote. “However, the measurement of intimate partner violence across surveys still shows notable variations in the quality of the surveys and types of measures used; for example, the definitions and items used to measure physical, sexual, psychological and other forms of intimate partner violence; women sampled (eg, ever-partnered, currently partnered only or all women); age groups; and whether current or previous partners are included, making comparability across studies and countries challenging. Rigorous statistics and estimates on intimate partner violence that adjust for these variations are key to improving understanding of its prevalence, nature and effect, and how these differ across age groups, countries and regions.”
Data collection
Sardinha and colleagues reviewed national and sub-national population-based data published between 2000 and 2018 available through the WHO Global Database. They included 366 studies that evaluated act-based measures of physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence among 2 million girls and women aged 15 years or older during their lifetime and within the past year.
Prevalence of violence
Based on available data, the researchers estimated that 27% (uncertainty interval [UI], 23%-31%) of ever-partnered women aged 15 to 49 years had experienced at least one type of intimate partner violence in their lifetime, 13% (UI, 10%-16%) of whom experienced it within the year preceding each respective study.
Age-disaggregated data showed that 24% (UI, 21%-28%) of adolescents aged 15 to 19 years, 26% to 28% of women aged 20 to 44 years, 23% (UI, 19%-31%) of women aged 60 to 64 years and 23% (UI, 18%-30%) of women aged 65 years or older had experienced sexual and/or physical intimate partner violence at least once in their lifetime.
Experiences of intimate partner violence within the year preceding each study were most common between the ages of 15 and 19 years (16%; UI, 14%-19%) and between 20 and 24 years (16%; UI, 13%-19%).
“This finding is concerning because adolescence and early adulthood are important life stages in which the foundations for healthy relationships are built; this violence has long-lasting effects on women’s health and overall well-being,” the researchers wrote.
The proportion of women who experienced any type of intimate partner violence within the past year decreased from age 25 years onward, such that 4% (UI, 3%-7%) of women aged 65 years and older experienced it in the past year.
“We found that the lifetime and past year prevalence of physical or sexual, or both, intimate partner violence varied widely across regions and countries, with higher prevalence rates of both types in low-income and middle-income countries and regions than high-income countries,” Sardinha and colleagues wrote. “These differences between higher-income and lower-income regions were notably more pronounced with past year prevalence than lifetime prevalence, and the relative differences between lifetime and past year prevalence were smaller in low-income and middle-income countries and regions.”
The researchers emphasized that their findings highlight that global commitments to reduce intimate partner violence are far from being met, and that the COVID-19 pandemic likely worsened the problem.
“These data clearly show that this violence predates the COVID-19 pandemic and will probably continue long after,” they wrote. “Preventing intimate partner violence from happening in the first place is necessary and urgent. Governments, societies and communities need to take heed, invest more, and act with urgency to reduce violence against women, including by addressing it in post-COVID-19 reconstruction efforts.”