Reacción a "Almost one in three women has experienced violence from a partner or sexual violence outside of a relationship, according to a WHO report"

The two most common forms of violence against women globally are physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner and sexual violence by someone other than an intimate partner. To date, the World Health Organisation has published two systematic reviews of scientific data from studies and surveys on the global and regional prevalence of these two forms of violence: first, it compiled data from 141 studies from 81 countries (WHO, 2013); and subsequently, data published between 2000 and 2018 in more than 300 studies conducted in 161 countries and areas (WHO, 2021; Sardinha et al., 2022).

It has now published Violence against women prevalence estimates, 2023: global, regional and national prevalence estimates for intimate partner violence against women and non-partner sexual violence against women (WHO, 2025), which compiles data on the prevalence of these forms of violence from studies and surveys conducted between 2000 and 2023 (441 studies from 164 countries and areas for intimate partner violence and 286 studies from up to 140 countries and areas for non-partner sexual violence).

The most notable data provided by this new report are as follows:

On both forms of violence:

• 30.4% of women aged 15 and over (31.6% of women aged 15 to 49) have been victims of physical or sexual violence within or outside a relationship at least once in their lives.

On intimate partner violence:

• 24.7% of women aged 15 and older who have had a partner (25.8% among women aged 15 to 49) have experienced physical and/or sexual violence at the hands of their intimate partner at least once in their lifetime.
• 11.4% of women aged 15 and over who have had a partner (13.7% among women aged 15 to 49) have experienced physical and/or sexual violence at the hands of their romantic partner in the previous 12 months.
• Changes in prevalence for women aged 15 to 49 have been studied: overall lifetime prevalence has fallen by 5% (from 30.8% in 2000 to 27.8% in 2023) and prevalence in the previous year by 4.2% (from 17.8% to 13.7%), but the annual rate of change is minimal (0.2% and 0.1%, respectively).

Regarding sexual violence outside the couple:

• 8.2% of women aged 15 and over (8.4% among women aged 15 to 49) have experienced sexual violence at the hands of someone other than their partner at least once in their lifetime.
• 2.4% of women aged 15 and over (2.7% among women aged 15 to 49) have experienced sexual violence at the hands of someone other than their partner in the previous 12 months.

Highlights of this report:

• Given the changes in both methodology and data availability, the results of this new report are not strictly comparable to previous prevalence estimates.
• It provides prevalence data disaggregated by age group, region, and, in some cases, by country.
• Although the prevalence of some of these forms of violence (such as sexual violence) may seem low, this does not prevent them from having a significant impact on women's lives. Furthermore, the actual prevalence is (according to all estimates) much higher than the reported prevalence, given that violence against women (and especially sexual violence) is highly stigmatised, making it difficult to report.
• In addition to the data, the report includes reflections on the methodological difficulties in obtaining this type of data and recommendations on actions to be taken to address these forms of violence.