United Nations Statistics Division
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Violence against women is defined as any act of “gender-based violence that results in or is likely to result in physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of acts such as coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life”. (Source: United Nations General Assembly, 1993, Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women)

In all societies, to varying degrees, women and girls are subjected to physical, sexual and psychological abuse that cuts across lines of income, class and culture. Such violence is recognised as a violation of human rights and a form of discrimination against women, reflecting the pervasive imbalance of power between women and men.

This web portal, developed and maintained by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), provides data and detailed metadata for the following 2 indicators for each country with available data as of May 2016.

These statistics are also available in the UNSD portal for the UN Minimum Set of Gender Indicators and can contribute to the monitoring of progress towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Target 5.2: Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation.

Source: All data and metadata are compiled by the United Nations Statistics Division based on country-level data reported by National Statistical Offices and collected through national surveys on violence against women, Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), the World Health Organisation (WHO) multicountry study, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) survey on Violence Against Women, and other sources such as International Violence Against Women Surveys (IVAWS), Reproductive Health Surveys (RHS), Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), Victimization and Crime Surveys. Last updated in May 2016.

Requested citation: United Nations Statistics Division Violence against Women data portal (unstats.un.org/unsd/gender/vaw/index.html)