Violence against women remains a violation of human rights around the world. Around one in three women, globally, report having experienced some form of gender-based violence in their lifetime – a rate that is surely a low estimate, given high barriers to disclosing violence.
OECD governments recognise the importance of this issue. In surveys of OECD governments both before and after COVID‑19, violence against women has been reported as the top gender equality challenge governments say they face. Yet, in the face of this challenge, public policy responses have been inconsistent over time, disjointed across relevant actors, and insufficiently funded to meet needs on the ground.
This report, Supporting Lives Free from Intimate Partner Violence: Towards Better Integration of Services for Victims/Survivors, explores how OECD governments can improve their response to intimate partner violence (IPV) through an integrated service delivery approach. It explores how co‑ordinated policies can improve victims/survivors’ outcomes across the areas of health, housing, justice, and income support, and offers examples of best practice.
This report is the continuation of an important programme of work on gender-based violence at the OECD. Building on longstanding cross-national data collection on violence against women, including the OECD Family Database and the Social Institutions and Gender Index, the OECD elevated the issue of gender-based violence in February 2020 with its High-Level Conference on Ending Violence Against Women, entitled “Taking Public Action to End Violence at Home”. This event resulted in a Call to Action from Ambassadors for the OECD to deepen its work in identifying and recommending key policy measures for governments to eliminate violence against women, in particular intimate partner violence.
Since then, the Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs (ELS) has carried out an extensive survey of OECD member countries and non-governmental service providers about integrated service delivery for victims/survivors of intimate partner violence – the results of which are presented in this report. ELS has also produced a podcast series entitled “Truth Hurts”, featuring conversations with experts in service delivery to address intimate partner violence.
This report is part of the OECD’s fruitful cross-directorate work covering gender-based violence, which includes the report Eliminating Gender-based Violence: Governance and Survivor/Victim-centred Approaches (OECD, 2021); Man Enough? Measuring Masculine Norms to Promote Women’s Empowerment (OECD, 2021); and a forthcoming horizontal report (2023) co‑ordinated across the OECD Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs; the OECD Public Governance Directorate; and the OECD Development Centre.