10%

One killing every 11 minutes

Investing in a world that’s safe for women

November 22^nd, 2023

Violence against women is surging, fed by conflict, the climate emergency and increasing poverty, inequality, toxic social norms, and political polarization.

Gender-based violence – most of it perpetrated by men against women – is unrelenting. It’s one of the most pervasive and widespread human rights violations. Longstanding global data has shown that one in three women experience physical or sexual violence in her lifetime and that reflects only the reported cases. The real rate is understood to be much higher.

UN Women reports that in 2021 about 45,000 women and girls were killed by a male relative—one killing every 11 minutes.

Much of the world does not see gender-based violence as a problem. UNDP reveals a staggering one quarter of people believe it’s okay for a man to beat his wife.

In 2021 about 45,000 women and girls were killed by a male relative—one killing every 11 minutes.

COVID-19 uncovered a ‘shadow pandemic’ of abuse that fueled and ran on parallel tracks to the health emergency. The same has been true for other recent disasters. Earthquakes, droughts, conflicts and floods all mean higher rates of rape, child marriage and trafficking. And violence surges when life becomes more difficult for men.

Crises perpetuate women's and girls’ disempowerment in less direct ways, robbing them of education and work opportunities and perpetuating a vicious cycle of poverty and inequality.

Whether sexual violence is used as a weapon of war, or as a ‘coping strategy’ in the case of child marriage, the rates of men’s violence against women is a society-wide scourge that must be urgently addressed. No country is immune.

Who pays?

Women first, but everybody else eventually.

Societies suffer when women are robbed of their lives, their bodies, their health, their peace of mind, and their life and career opportunities. Men’s violence towards women pushes up the cost of healthcare, education, social protection and justice, and it attacks productivity.

The bill is conservatively estimated at US$1.5 trillion at a minimum—about two percent of the world’s GDP.

A world where the entire population is safe and in a position to realize their life goals has the potential to be transformative.

Investing in prevention is critical—and core to UNDP’s mandate to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Increasing evidence shows that ending men’s violence towards women is not just crucial to human rights and gender equality, but to all the SDGs.

Gender-based violence is preventable. Evidence shows that changing harmful gendered social norms and improving women’s economic security are among our most powerful tools.

Even simple measures such as cash transfers to poor households significantly reduce violence in 73 percent of cases. Cash and food transfer programmes in Ecuador led to violence being reduced by 19-30 percent.

But UNDP is also spearheading a bigger movement pushing for radical, transformative and societal change.

There is enormous and largely unexplored potential. Better policies can save lives.

The Spotlight Initiative, supported by the European Union, invests in grassroots organizations. The world’s largest effort to end violence against women and girls, its independent assessment, the Imperative to Invest has found that it has the capacity to prevent violence for more than 21 million and girls by 2025—saving at least two lives a day.

And because men are more violent during crises, UNDP’s 10-Point Action Agenda is advancing systemic transformation. It represents a strong commitment to root out the most stubborn causes of gender inequality.

This year’s 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, takes place with the UN theme “Invest to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls”.

Investment is key

The backlash against gender equality has become more pronounced, worsening legal, political and social discrimination. Attacks against women human rights defenders are rising. Online abuse is one of the newest ways to silence women’s voices and thwart their work. The numbers of women political leaders are low, but the extent of violence against the ones who enter electoral politics or who have assumed positions of leadership has been described by one UN official as a “moral and ethical failure”.

Women’s organizations play a vital role and yet they receive only one percent of state budgets. While most countries have budgeted for policies to address violence, it’s unclear how they work together in key areas such as education, health, economic development and social protection.

Because gender-based violence doesn’t exist in a vacuum, UNDP works with its partners to incorporate gender equality into other programmes, including a specific focus on prevention. Pilot initiatives in Bhutan, Indonesia, Iraq, Lebanon, Peru, Moldova and Uganda are showing more gender equitable attitudes. And microfinancing in South Africa has halved domestic violence in two years.

As part of its Gender Equality Strategy, UNDP is investing in strong women’s and feminist organizations that are making change. Structural reforms, such as expanding land ownership rights can have enormous knock-on effects – especially when gender equality is at the core.

We are developing new ways to counter the gender equality backlash. Our gender social media monitoring tool uses artificial intelligence to detect hate speech. It’s being piloted in Colombia, the Philippines and Uganda where we are working with policymakers to confront the wave of digital violence.

Change policies and minds

Despite progress on laws to address and prevent violence against women, at the current rate it will take at least another 21 years for these laws to be in place everywhere.

This sounds as if true and comprehensive gender equality is still a wildly distant vision, but it need not be. The link between poverty and gendered violence is well established, as is the link between violence, environmental degradation and crises. We know how to break the cycle of violence and there is no time to wait.