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Abstract
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International Women's Day, this year themed Inspiring Change, falls on March 8. For more than a century, this event has marked women's achievements in a world where the sexes are far from equal in many countries. In promoting the education, health, and success of women, the Day has addressed the distressing but key topic of violence against women more than once.
In a recent systematic review, Naeemah Abrahams and colleagues reported that, worldwide, 7·2% of women had experienced non-partner sexual violence, an estimate described by commentator Kathryn Yount as “unacceptably high on public health and human rights grounds”. Estimates were from studies in 56 countries, and ranged from 3·3% of women in south Asia to 21·0% in central sub-Saharan Africa. Such events have profound adverse effects on women's wellbeing, and implicit in the figures are not only the difficulties involved in obtaining reliable information about the covert and destructive problem of sexual violence against women, but also the permissive societal norms responsible.
In today's Lancet, Wendy Macdowall and Kaye Wellings discuss the sensitivities involved in research about sexual experiences before age 13 years in the Natsal-3 study, which reported on the non-volitional sexual experiences of women and men living in Britain, surveyed in 2010—13. In Natsal-3, non-volitional sex was reported by 9·8% of women and 1·4% of men aged 16—74 years. Anita Raj and Lotus McDougal focus on sexual violence against women in India, highlighting the apparent prevalence of 8·5%, “among the lowest in the world”, and the infrequent reporting of rape within marriage, especially by adolescent wives.
Increased awareness that sexual violence is unacceptable is a prerequisite for change; in the UK and India this has been perceptible in prominent legal cases in recent years. Ongoing development of culturally apt methods to study sexual violence will provide foundations for the deep-seated changes in culture, policy, and law needed to protect women's lives and health in all countries.
Language: en |