Eliminating Violence against Women in the Asia Pacific: It’s All of Our Responsibility

Violence against women has been described as a global issue of 'epidemic proportions', and is perhaps the most widespread and socially tolerated form of human rights violations. Women are affected by different forms of violence at different stages of their lives. These include (but are not limited to) violence by intimate partners and family members, sexual violence, trafficking, femicide (including dowry killings), female genital mutilation, and child or forced marriage.

A world where women are free of the threat of violence is one in which both individual women and the society of which they are a part is better off. Violence against women is not only a gross violation of women's human rights, but causes both a range of financial and health issues for individual victims, and imposes significant economic and social costs on society.