Domestic Violence Fact Sheet

On 25th November 2002, UNIFEM is hosting a special event in New York, to
commemorate UN-designated International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Women and men who have used effective strategies to end violence in their lives and communities will speak alongside Eve Ensler, author and activist, Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Director of UNIFEM, and others.

• Somewhere in America a woman is battered, usually by her intimate partner, every 15 seconds. (United Nations Study on The World’s Women, 2000)

• A woman is raped every 23 seconds in South Africa. (Rape Crisis Cape Town, 1998)

• Every minute in the United Kingdom, police receive a call from the public for assistance for domestic violence. 81% of these are female victims attacked by male perpetrators. (Economic and Social Research Council’s Programme on Violence, Royal Holloway, September 28, 2000)

• 47% of women in Bangladesh have been physically abused in their lifetime by an intimate partner (WHO, Database on Violence Against Women, 2000)