Intimate Partner Violence

• In the year 2001, more than half a million American women (588,490 women) were victims of nonfatal violence committed by an intimate partner.1
• Intimate partner violence is primarily a crime against women. In 2001, women accounted for 85 percent of the victims of intimate partner violence (588,490 total) and men accounted for approximately 15 percent of the victims (103,220 total).2
• In 2001, intimate partner violence made up 20 percent of violent crime against women. The same year, intimate partners committed three percent of all violent crime against men.3
• Intimate partners commit 40-70 percent of homicides of women worldwide.4
• Around the world, 1 in 3 women have been beaten, coerced into sex, other otherwise abused in their lifetime. Most often, the abuser is a member of her own family.5
• A large study in India found that 43.5 percent of women reported that they were psychologically abused by their partners, and 40.3 percent reported that they were physically abused. Fifty percent of women who were physically abused reported violence during pregnancy.6

Domestic Homicides

• On average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in this country every day. In 2000, 1,247 women were killed by an intimate partner. The same year, 440 men were killed by an intimate partner.7
• Women are much more likely than men to be killed by an intimate partner. In 2000, intimate partner homicides accounted for 33.5 percent of the murders of women and less than 4 percent of the murders of men.8
  

Intimate Partner Violence and Youth

• Approximately one in five female high school students reports being physically and/or sexually abused by a dating partner.9
• Eight percent of high school age girls said "yes" when asked if "a boyfriend or date has ever forced sex against your will."10
• Forty percent of girls age 14 to 17 reports knowing someone their age who has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend.11
  

Rape

• Three in four women (76 percent) who reported they had been raped and/or physically assaulted since age 18 said that a current or former husband, cohabiting partner, or date committed the assault.12
• One in five (21 percent) women reported she had been raped or physically or sexually assaulted in her lifetime.13
• Nearly one-fifth of women (18 percent) reported experiencing a completed or attempted rape at some time in their lives; one in 33 men (three percent) reported experiencing a completed or attempted rape at some time in their lives.14
• In 2000, 48 percent of the rapes/sexual assaults committed against people age twelve and over were reported to the police.15
• In 2001, 41,740 women were victims of rape/sexual assault committed by an intimate partner.16
• Rapes/sexual assaults committed by strangers are more likely to be reported to the police than rapes/sexual assaults committed by "non-strangers," including intimate partners, other relatives and friends or acquaintances. Between 1992 and 2000, 41 percent of the rapes/sexual assaults committed by strangers were reported to the police. During the same time period, 24 percent of the rapes/sexual assaults committed by an intimate were reported.17
  

Violence Against Girls

• A 1998 survey in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh found that nearly 14 percent of girls were married between the ages of 10 and 14.18
• In Ethiopia and in parts of West Africa, marriage at the age of seven or eight is not uncommon.19
• In Kebbi State in northern Nigeria, the average age of marriage for girls is just over 11 years, against a national average of 17.20
• UNICEF estimates that 1,000 to 1,500 Guatemalan babies and children are trafficked each year for adoption by couples in North America and Europe.21
• Girls as young as 13 (mainly from Asia and Eastern Europe) are trafficked as "mail-order brides." In most cases these girls and women are powerless and isolated and at great risk of violence.22
• Large numbers of children are being trafficked in West and Central Africa, mainly for domestic work but also for sexual exploitation and to work in shops or on farms. Nearly 90 percent of these trafficked domestic workers are girls.23
• Children from Togo, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana are trafficked to Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Gabon. Children are trafficked both in and out of Benin and Nigeria. Some children are sent as far away as the Middle East and Europe.24
  

• The worldwide number of international migrants rose between the years 1965 to 1995 from 75 to about 130 million people.
• As many as 80 percent of the 236 women in prostitution interviewed in Battambang, Cambodia were found to have been trafficked.
• By the time they arrive in Japan, most trafficked Thai women have accumulated on average around $4 million Japanese Yen, approximately $25,000 U.S. dollars in debt.
• Thirty percent of the women in prostitution in Cambodia were below the age of 17. But the youngest was found to be twelve.
• 1995 estimates of the total revenue from prostitution in Thailand were approximately 59-60 percent of the government's budget for that year.
• In 1991, 1992 and 1993 approximately 100 to 150 Bangladeshi women were brought into Pakistan and at least 2,000 are languishing in jails and shelters across the country.
• The total number of prostitutes in India is 7,936,509.
• UNICEF estimates that there are at least a million child prostitutes in Asia alone with the greatest numbers in India, Thailand, Taiwan and the Philippines.
• A study done by Chris De Stoop reveals that trafficking in Europe most often involves Asian women.
• Australia Federal Police estimate that prostitution grosses $30 million Australian dollars annually.
• International crime syndicates traffic both drugs and women; 10 smaller syndicates are known to traffic up to 300 Thai women yearly each.
• Asian women are to be found in prostitution particularly in Canberra, Victoria and Queensland.
• Russian women have also been recruited for "tabletop dancing" in clubs that often have links to brothels.

1-3Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003. [back]

4,5Intimate Partner Violence . World Health Organization, Regional Office for South-East Asia. Retrieved January 15, 2006. [back]

6Heise, Lori; Mary Ellsberg; Megan Gottemoeller. 1999. Ending Violence Against Women. Population Reports, Series L, No. 11. Baltimore, Maryland. Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, Population Information Program. [back]

7,8Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003. [back]

9Jay G. Silverman, PhD; Anita Raj, PhD; Lorelei A. Mucci, MPH; and Jeanne E. Hathaway, MD, MPH, "Dating Violence Against Adolescent Girls and Associated Substance Use, Unhealthy Weight Control, Sexual Risk Behavior, Pregnancy, and Suicidality," Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 286, No. 5, 2001. [back]

10The Commonwealth Fund Survey of the Health of Adolescent Girls, November 1997. [back]

11U.S. Department of Education, Violence and Discipline Problems in U.S. Public Schools: 1996-1997. [back]

12U.S. Department of Justice, Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, November 1998. [back]

13The Commonwealth Fund, Health Concerns Across a Woman's Lifespan: 1998 Survey of Women's Health, May 1999. [back]

14National Institute of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, November 1998. [back]

15Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, Reporting Crime to the Police, 1992-2000, March 2003. [back]

16Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003. [back]

17Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, Reporting Crime to the Police, 1992-2000, March 2003. [back]

18-20UNICEF. Child Protection: Early Marriage. Retrieved January 23, 2006. [back]

21-24UNICEF. Child Protection: Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation. Retrieved January 23, 2006. [back]

25All statistics from The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women — Asia Pacific (CATW-AP). [back]