Facts and figures: Ending violence against women | UN Women – Headquarters

Mar 11, 2025

The availability of data on violence against women and girls has improved considerably in recent years and data on the prevalence of intimate partner violence is now available for at least 161 countries. Please visit our research and data page to better understand how data is crucial to UN Women’s work on preventing and responding to violence against women and girls.

#NoExcuse. UNiTE to End Violence against Women.

Women who suffer multiple forms of discrimination face a higher risk of violence and are more vulnerable to its consequences.

Interlocking crises including economic crises, conflicts, and climate change are intensifying gender-based violence with marginalized women facing disproportionate and multiple forms of intersecting discrimination.

Female genital mutilation (FGM) remains a deeply entrenched practice affecting millions of women and girls worldwide. Despite global efforts to eliminate it, FGM continues to pose severe health risks, violate fundamental human rights, and perpetuate gender inequality, particularly in parts of Africa and the Middle East.

The lack of a common definition for technology-facilitated violence against women and girls makes it challenging to collect comparable global data. However, country and regional studies reveal alarmingly high rates of online harassment and abuse:

Women in public life, including parliamentarians and journalists, face high levels of psychological violence, harassment, and threats, often tied to their gender. These forms of violence not only threaten their personal safety but also hinder gender equality and democratic participation.

Violence against women incurs significant costs to the state, to victims/survivors, and communities. Costs are both direct and indirect, and tangible and intangible. For example, the costs of the salaries of individuals working at shelters are direct tangible costs. Costs are borne by everyone, including individual victims/survivors, perpetrators, the government and society in general. Here are some examples of the economic toll of gender-based violence across the world: