NEW DELHI: An estimated 263 million women (8 per cent globally) have been subjected to sexual violence by men other than intimate partners at least once since the age of 15, said the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday.
The WHO called for more consistent and rigorous measurement of non-partner sexual violence against women and girls, a widespread form of violence that remains underreported and inadequately measured.
The health organisation said the prevalence is likely to be much higher because of gaps in available evidence, measurement challenges and the underreporting associated with stigma and fear of repercussions.
Non-partner sexual violence, defined as "sexual violence perpetrated by someone other than an intimate partner", is a global public health and human rights issue with serious consequences for women’s physical, mental, sexual and reproductive health.
A new technical brief prepared jointly by the UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, WHO, and the World Bank Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction (HPR) identifies key measurement challenges and provides recommendations to researchers, statistical offices and others designing population-based surveys for strengthening the measurement of non-partner sexual violence.
The WHO’s review of population-based surveys, conducted between 2000 and 2023, identified 140 countries with at least one eligible survey, covering 89% of the global population of women and girls aged 15 years and older.
Yet many countries lacked this data. In 42 of the 140 countries, more than a decade had passed since the most recent eligible survey.
Differences in definitions, survey questions, age ranges and populations included make it difficult to compare findings across countries and over time.
Some surveys, for example, ask only ever-partnered women about sexual violence, despite non-partner sexual violence potentially affecting any woman or girl, regardless of their partnership status.
The brief said that how questions are asked and what questions are asked matter.
Evidence shows that behaviourally specific, act-based questions are more effective than asking women more broadly whether they have been subjected to sexual violence.
This is because social norms may result in some acts of sexual violence being normalised and therefore under-reported. Furthermore, using very narrow definitions of sexual violence, like asking only about rape or attempted rape, also fails to capture other forms of sexual violence.
"This results in an under-estimation of the actual magnitude of the problem," it said.
The brief emphasizes that collecting data on violence must be done safely and ethically. Surveys should protect respondents’ privacy and confidentiality, provide appropriate referral pathways for support and ensure that interviewers receive specialized training, support and supervision.
It also called for further work to develop accurate ways to capture women’s and adolescent girls' understanding and experience of coercion and lack of consent in sexual interactions, sexual harassment and technology-facilitated sexual violence like non-consensual sharing of nude images and issuing rape threats online.
Better data are essential for accountability and action.
As a co-custodian of indicators under Sustainable Development Goal target 5.2 on eliminating violence against women and girls, WHO and HRP work with partners to strengthen countries’ capacity to generate reliable and comparable data on non-partner sexual violence.
"Such data can help governments and partners understand where prevention and response efforts are most needed, design programmes that better respond to survivors, and monitor progress towards ending violence against women and girls," it said.
The WHO called for sustained investment in high-quality population-based surveys and greater international standardisation of measures of sexual violence so that the experiences of women and girls are more accurately represented in national, regional and global evidence.
