Violence against Women (VAW) encompasses all forms of violence perpetrated against women. This includes all forms of physical violence, sexual violence and abuse, psychological violence, economic violence, and harassment. Other forms of violence against women include harassment, rape and other forms of assault, child marriage, human trafficking, female genital mutilation, a lack of reproductive rights, social norms that devalue women, and discriminatory laws that disenfranchise women.
The share of women who report having been victims of violence is high in many countries. Across OECD countries, 22% of women report having experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner in their lifetimes, with 4% of women having experienced intimate partner violence in the past year. More than 30% of women in Colombia and Türkiye report having experienced lifetime interpersonal violence from a partner, while more than 8% of women in Korea, Mexico, Türkiye and Colombia report having experienced intimate partner violence in the past year (Figure 8.7). However, the prevalence of violence against women is likely under-reported as survivors/victims fear retaliation or lack the resources to escape.
The OECD Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) 2023 showed that social norms and legal frameworks can either drive processes of social transformation or act as barriers to women’s empowerment. Although legislative progress to protect women’s physical integrity has been made since SIGI 2019, there are still disparities across OECD countries. In 28 countries, the legal framework protects women from violence, including intimate partner violence, rape, and sexual harassment, without any legal exception. In four OECD countries, survivors of violence still face legal obstacles; in six countries, the law provides legal protection from sexual harassment, but these countries either have reduced penalties or do not include criminal penalties.
Social norms can also be powerful disincentives for women to report and pursue legal recourse against perpetrators. Social acceptance of domestic violence against women by women themselves weakens the functioning of legal frameworks and is an obstacle to addressing violence against women. Within OECD countries on average, 10% of women say that a husband may be justified in hitting or beating his wife, from 2% or less in Denmark, Ireland and Lithuania to up to over 30% in Chile and Mexico and over 40% in Korea (Figure 8.8). SIGI 2023 showed that attitudes justifying violence against women are strongly associated with more women experiencing it in the last year.
Many women feel exposed to physical and verbal aggression, sexual harassment and other forms of violence or unwelcome behaviour, leading to personal stress and physical harm. On average across OECD countries, almost one in three women report not feeling safe when walking alone at night, compared to one in five for men (Figure 8.9). Women feel safer in Norway, Luxembourg and Switzerland, where less than 15% of women do not feel safe walking alone at night than in Latin America, where around 60% of women reported not feeling safe walking alone at night, and this was over 70% in South Africa.
