Statistics on Domestic Violence

• This image shows how prevalent domestic violence is in our societies, both developed and developing. Although all of us are affected by domestic violence, research has shown that 85% of domestic violence victims are women. The age group most affected of all is 20-24. About 1 in 4 women have experienced physical domestic violence at some point in their lives.
• It is also frightening to acknowledge how many women accept and justify domestic violence for a valid reason. Such reasons include burning the food, going out without notice, arguing, etc...; the most widespread reason which could justify violence was neglecting children. Research also showed that domestic violence acceptance was inversely proportional to the level of education a woman received. The education level of a woman affected her views much more than her social status or income. In recent years justification of domestic violence began to fall rapidly among women. As an example, acceptance fell by 52% in Ghana from 2003 to 2008, from 85% to 37%. In a study of 80 countries only two showed and increase in domestic violence accepetance: Cambodia and Jordan. This survey was conducted by UNICEF, and took place in 80 developing countries located in Africa, Asia, the CIS, and the Pacific. The highest levels of domestic violence accpetance were in Africa.
• From the justification of domestic violence serious problems arise. A lot of people do not go to the police and the perpetrator goes unpunished. A survey has shown that only 1/4 of all domestic violence incidents, 1/5 rape assaults, 1/2 stalkers are reported to the police. When people do turn to the police, in a lot of countries (especially developing) domestic violence is viewed as a private matter and police do not interfere. Without police involvement, it is not rare when domestic violence results in death. One in three of homicide victims were killed by their partners; a big percentage of these victims faced domestic violence.
• Domestic violence also has a high economic cost since a country has to pay for the healthcare of the victims and the days that they have taken off work. Especially in developing nations, this results in a vicious cycle where domestic violence drains money which the government could use for the prevention of the violence. In the U.S.A about 5.8 billion dollars are spent as a result of domestic violence. These statistics and the statistics in the first paragraph come from the NCADV, National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, a non-profit organization.

Sources:
1.The image comes from the International Museum of Women homepage: http://www.imow.org/wpp/learn/maps/index . The site also contains other maps on restrictions imposed on women in different countries, the wages women get as compared to men, and the involvement of women in governments.
2.http://www.ncadv.org/
3.http://www.childinfo.org/attitudes_data.php