Violence against women is more detrimental than just the apparent physical consequences. It has damaging effects on women not only physically, but also emotionally and mentally. It also has an economic impact, costing governments millions of dollars in relief, support, and criminal proceedings. On a global scale, violence against women contributes to
the HIV/AIDS epidemic, unwanted pregnancies, and poverty.

Social

  • Abused women are more likely than others to suffer from depression, anxiety, psychosomatic symptoms, eating problems, sexual dysfunction and many reproductive health problems, including miscarriage and stillbirth, premature delivery, HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions.
  • Consequences of abuse, such as HIV/AIDS or unplanned pregnancies, may in themselves act as risk factors for further aggression, forming a cycle of abuse. Adolescents who have experienced sexual abuse are more likely to experience it again later in life.

Global

  • Systematic rape, used as a weapon of war, has left millions of women and adolescent girls traumatized, forcibly impregnated, or infected with HIV.
  • Women aged 15-44 are more at risk from rape and domestic violence than from cancer, motor accidents, war and malaria, according to World Bank data.
  • Several global surveys suggest that half of all women who die from homicide are killed by their current or former husbands or partners. In Australia, Canada, Israel, South Africa and the United States, 40%-70% of female murder victims were killed by their partners, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
  • According to the 2006 Secretary-General’s In-Depth Study on All Forms of Violence against Women, 89 States worldwide had some form of legislative prohibition on domestic violence, and a growing number of countries had instituted national plans of action to end violence against women.

Economic

  • The costs of violence against women are extremely high. They include the direct costs of services to treat and support abused women and their children and to bring perpetrators to justice. The indirect costs include lost employment and productivity, and the cost in human pain and suffering.
  • The cost of intimate partner violence in the United States alone exceeds US$5.8 billion per year: US$4.1 billion is for direct medical and health care services, while productivity losses account for nearly US $1.8 billion.
  • In Canada, a 1995 study estimated the annual direct costs of violence against women to be Can$684 million for the criminal justice system, Can$187 million for police and Can $294 million for the cost of counseling and training, totaling more than Can$1 billion a year. A 2004 study in the United Kingdom estimated the total direct and indirect costs of domestic violence, including pain and suffering, to be £23 billion per year or £440 per person.

All facts and statistics from UNFPA.org and UNiTE to End Violence Against Women.