Abstract
This is the Main Report by the World Health Organization (WHO) with the initial results of their study based on evidence from over 24,000 women and findings from 15 sites in 10 countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, Japan, Peru, Namibia, Samoa, Serbia and Montenegro, Thailand and the United Republic of Tanzania. It looks at the prevalence of violence by intimate partners and the associations with women’s physical, mental, sexual and reproductive health. It also looks at non-partner violence, sexual abuse during childhood and forced first sexual experience. The report contains 11 chapters, along with the methodology in Annex 1, questionnaire in Annex 4 and a statistical appendix. Results are presented in Chapters 4 to 9. Chapter 4 looks at the prevalence of violence by intimate partners. Chapter 5 looks at the prevalence of violence by perpetrators other than intimate partners since the age of 15 years. Chapter 6 discusses the prevalence of sexual abuse in childhood and forced first sexual experience. Chapter 7 presents the association between violence by intimate partners and women’s physical and mental health. Chapter 8 focuses on the associations between violence by intimate partners and women’s sexual and reproductive health. Chapter 9 describes women’s coping strategies and responses to physical violence by intimate partners. A summary of findings and areas for further research is outlined in Chapter 10. Fifteen recommendations are made. They include some of the following. For strengthening national action on violence against women: promote gender equality and women’s human rights; establish data collection systems to monitor violence against women; enlist social, religious, political and other leaders to speak out against violence against women. For promoting primary prevention: develop, implement and monitor programmes aimed at primary prevention of intimate partner violence and sexual violence including sustained public awareness activities at changing attitudes; integrate responses to violence against women into existing programmes for the prevention of HIV and AIDS, and for adolescent health; higher priority is to be given to address sexual abuse of girls and boys in public health programmes and in responses by the judiciary, education and social services. For strengthening health sector responses: develop health sector response to the impacts of violence against women and address the barriers and stigma that prevent abused women from seeking assistance through supporting mental health services; use reproductive health services as entry points for identifying and supporting women. For improving criminal justice systems: sensitise legal and justice systems to the needs of women victims of violence.