Planning and Organizing the Production of Statistics on Violence against Women Social and Housing Statistics Section United Nations Statistics Division

Definition Violence against women – broadly defined as physical, sexual, psychological and/or economic violence perpetuated on women as a consequence of unequal status of women and men in a society Eradicating violence against women is a major concern of the United Nations

Sources of statistics Administrative Police and crime statistics Court statistics Health statistics Government agencies dealing with victims of violence Community and NGO Social services

Sources of statistics Administrative – issues Non-reporting Fear of perpetrator Shame Fear … Ethical issues Information on victim or perpetrator not collected Partial coverage Multiple counting

Violence against women statistical survey Sources of statistics Violence against women statistical survey Most reliable method Flexible Dedicated Module

Sources of statistics - summary Data source Strengths Limitations Health services Identify potential victims Identify extreme cases Ethical concerns Not representative Cannot be used to measure prevalence

Sources of data - summary Data source Strengths Limitations Criminal and civil justice systems Data organized in a useful manner Can be used to evaluate court response to VaW cases Non-reporting Not representative Cannot be used to measure prevalence Not necessarily gender-sensitive

Sources of statistics - summary Data source Strengths Limitations Other government agencies/programs Identify victims more directly Small proportion of victims Not representative Cannot be used to measure prevalence

Sources of statistics - summary Data source Strengths Limitations Other support services Identify victims unknown to government agencies Source of qualitative data/metadata Small proportion of victims Double-counting Not representative Cannot be used to measure prevalence

Sources of statistics - summary Data source Strengths Limitations Population surveys Representative of population Can be used to measure prevalence Detailed No small area statistics Resource heavy

What is violence? Prevalence Incidence Content of the survey Physical Sexual Psychological Economic Prevalence Percentage of women Incidence Number of occurrences

Characteristics of the victim Characteristics of the perpetrator Content of the survey Characteristics of the victim Characteristics of the perpetrator Characteristics of the violence Circumstances Consequences Reporting

National dedicated surveys (around 30 countries) VaW surveys to date National dedicated surveys (around 30 countries) International Violence against Women Surveys (11 countries) WHO Multi-country study (12 countries) DHS module (at least 24 countries) MICS module (at least 25 countries) UN Regional Module (4 countries)

Scope of the methodological overview Analysis of 59 nationally representative surveys from 49 countries Dedicated surveys – 21 countries Dedicated module – 5 countries WHO-VaW methodology – 10+4 countries DHS methodology - 10 Other - 1 14

Findings Total and age specific rate of women subjected to physical violence in the last 12 months by severity of violence, relationship to the perpetrator and frequency 15

Findings Total and age specific rate of women subjected to physical violence during lifetime by severity of violence, relationship to the perpetrator and frequency 16

Findings Total and age specific rate of women subjected to sexual violence in the last 12 months by severity of violence, relationship to the perpetrator and frequency 17

Findings Total and age specific rate of women subjected to sexual violence during lifetime by severity of violence, relationship to the perpetrator and frequency 18

Findings Total and age specific rate of women subjected to phusical or sexual violence in the past 12 months and during lifetime by severity of violence, relationship to the perpetrator and frequency 19

Review conclusions Statistics for only one indicator – physical violence against women in their lifetime – available in 80% of surveys Short classification of relationship to the perpetrator Lack of the availability of total rates – requires further technical analysis Clearly points to the need to establish methodological standards and develop as universal as possible classifications of violence, severity of violence, relationship to the perpetrators and frequency Developing guidelines 20