Search results
Gender-based violence can happen in both the private and public spheres and it affects women disproportionately. Gender-based violence can be sexual, physical, verbal, psychological (emotional), or socio-economic and it can take many forms, from verbal violence and hate speech
- What is gender-based violence? It’s helpful to define GBV as it can take many forms — including some that aren’t as apparent as others. The United Nations defines gender-based violence as any act of violence against women and girls based on their gender; an act “that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.”
- Gender-based violence is a widespread phenomenon, not a rare event, affecting over 730 million women. In fact, one in every three women worldwide will be physically, sexually, or otherwise abused in her lifetime.
- Gender equality is strongly linked to GBV. For example, the World Bank has ranked Pakistan as having one of the lowest levels of gender equality in the world.
- Gender-based violence is a human rights violation. GBV and gender inequality exist in a vicious cycle in which one enables the other. As such, gender-based violence is a human rights violation that threatens the first article of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”
Mar 25, 2024 · Violence against women – particularly intimate partner violence and sexual violence – is a major public health problem and a violation of women's human rights. Estimates published by WHO indicate that globally about 1 in 3 (30%) of women worldwide have been subjected to either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner ...
Jun 27, 2024 · Gender-related killings of women and girls (femicide/feminicide) are the most extreme and brutal manifestation of violence against women. They can take place in a wide range of situations within the private and public spheres, and within different contexts of perpetrator–victim relationship.
- Intimate-partner violence. Intimate partner violence refers to behaviour by an intimate partner or ex-partner that causes physical, sexual or psychological harm, including physical aggression, sexual coercion, psychological abuse and controlling behaviours.
- Sexual violence. Sexual violence is any sort of harmful or unwanted sexual behaviour that is imposed on someone. It includes acts of abusive sexual contact, forced engagement in sexual acts, attempted or completed sexual acts with a woman without her consent, sexual harassment, verbal abuse, threats, exposure, unwanted touching, incest, and others.
- Femicide. Femicide is the intentional killing of a woman or a girl because she is a woman or a girl. The gender-related motivation of the killing may range from stereotyped gender roles, discrimination towards women and girls, to unequal power relations between women and men in society.
- Human trafficking. Human trafficking is a global crime that trades in people and exploits them for profit. Physical and sexual abuse, blackmail, emotional manipulation, and the removal of official documents are used by traffickers to control their victims.
Reports reveal increased gender-based violence against women around the world, with surges being reported in many cases of upwards of 25%, as stated in the United Nations Policy Brief on the Impact of COVID-19 on Women (2020).
girls indicates that this is not a product of random acts by a few bad actors. Such violence, inten-tionally committed, is a product of power and control, stemming from inequality between men and women, with varying levels of inequality (and power), based on intersecting identities (such as gender, race, ethnicity, civil status, (dis)ability,
