WHO puts lifetime partner or sexual violence at 840 million women, barely moved since 2000
Intimate partner violence has declined by 0.2% a year over two decades. The report also produces the first national and regional estimates of sexual violence by someone other than a partner.
The World Health Organization and UN partners released updated global estimates of violence against women on 19 November, and the headline number is that nearly one in three women — an estimated 840 million globally — have experienced partner or sexual violence during their lifetime [s1].
The figure that carries more information is the trend attached to it: that number has barely changed since 2000 [s1].
What the report covers
The report analyses data from 2000 to 2023 across 168 countries, updating estimates that were themselves based on 2018 data and released in 2021 [s1]. WHO describes it as the most comprehensive study of the prevalence of these two forms of violence against women [s1].
In the last 12 months alone, 316 million women — 11% of those aged 15 or older — were subjected to physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner [s1]. Progress on reducing intimate partner violence has been, in the report's framing, painfully slow, with only a 0.2% annual decline over the past two decades [s1].
For the first time, the report includes national and regional estimates of sexual violence by someone other than a partner. It finds 263 million women have experienced non-partner sexual violence since age 15 — a figure WHO cautions is significantly under-reported because of stigma and fear [s1].
That caveat applies to the whole exercise. Prevalence estimates for violence are built from surveys in which disclosure is voluntary and costly, and under-reporting is the expected direction of error in every setting.
Where the burden concentrates
Violence occurs in every country, but women in least-developed, conflict-affected and climate-vulnerable settings are disproportionately affected [s1]. Oceania excluding Australia and New Zealand reports 38% prevalence of intimate partner violence in the past year — more than three times the global average of 11% [s1].
The report also stresses that risk begins early. In the past 12 months alone, 12.5 million adolescent girls aged 15–19, or 16%, experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner [s1].
The health consequences, and the health system's role
Women subjected to violence face unintended pregnancies, higher risk of acquiring sexually transmitted infections, and depression [s1]. WHO frames sexual and reproductive health services as an important entry point for survivors to receive care [s1].
That framing matters for where measurement is thinnest. Pregnancy is one of the periods in which women are in regular contact with health services and also a period of elevated risk, and country-level studies find high prevalence there. A cross-sectional survey of 432 pregnant women in the rural Hadiya Zone of Central Ethiopia, conducted in July 2023, found overall intimate partner violence during the recent pregnancy of 38.37% (95% CI 33.82–43.18) [s2]. By type, psychological violence was reported by 28.84% (95% CI 24.62–33.43), physical violence by 22.09% (95% CI 18.29–26.31) and sexual violence by 20.70% (95% CI 17.02–24.84) [s2].
Factors significantly associated with violence during pregnancy in that study included early marriage before age 20, being uneducated, lower autonomy among women, husbands' cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption, poor knowledge of intimate partner violence among husbands, and husbands' involvement in antenatal care [s2].
A single district survey does not generalise, and self-reported prevalence in a face-to-face interview is subject to the same under-reporting as the global estimates. But it illustrates what WHO's data gaps look like from the inside: the settings where the numbers are highest are the settings where routine data is scarcest.
The funding picture
The report warns that funding for violence prevention is collapsing, at a moment when humanitarian emergencies, technological shifts and rising socio-economic inequality are increasing risks [s1]. In 2022, only 0.2% of global development aid was allocated to programmes focused on prevention of violence against women, and funding fell further in 2025 [s1].
WHO notes gaps remain in data on non-partner sexual violence and on marginalised groups including indigenous women, migrants and women with disabilities, as well as in fragile and humanitarian settings [s1].
What WHO is asking for
The report calls for government action and funding to scale up evidence-based prevention programmes, strengthen survivor-centred health, legal and social services, invest in data systems to track progress and reach the most at-risk groups, and enforce laws and policies empowering women and girls [s1]. It is accompanied by the second edition of the RESPECT Women framework, which offers updated guidance for violence prevention including in humanitarian contexts [s1].
The report cites country examples where political commitment has produced movement: Cambodia is implementing a national project updating domestic violence legislation and service delivery, and Ecuador, Liberia, Trinidad and Tobago and Uganda have developed costed national action plans [s1].
What to watch
Whether the next update, on the same 168-country basis, shows the 0.2% annual decline changing at all. On the current trajectory it will not, and that is the point the report is making with its own numbers.
Sources
- Lifetime toll: 840 million women faced partner or sexual violence — World Health Organization, 2025-11-19
- The magnitude of intimate partner violence during pregnancy and associated factors in rural Ethiopia — International Health, 2025-04-17
Sources
- Lifetime toll: 840 million women faced partner or sexual violence — World Health Organization , November 19, 2025
- The magnitude of intimate partner violence during pregnancy and associated factors in rural Ethiopia — International Health , April 17, 2025
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