Getting to zero: what will it take to eliminate violence against women?

Abstract

A staggering 840 million women and adolescent girls worldwide have experienced physical violence, sexual violence, or both by an intimate partner or sexual violence by a non-partner at least once in their lifetime—a number that has barely changed in the past two decades.¹ In 2023, an estimated 263 million women aged 15 years and older were subjected to sexual violence by men other than partners at least once since age 15 years;¹ the stigma of disclosing and reporting and narrow measures of this form of violence used in surveys means this number is highly likely to be an underestimate. These estimates of the prevalence of intimate partner violence and non-partner sexual violence against women in 2023 (published in 2025 by WHO, on behalf of the UN Interagency Working Group on Violence against Women Estimation and Data) highlight that the average global annual decline of physical or sexual violence or both by an intimate partner from 2000 to 2023 is a mere 0·2% per year.¹ At this rate, no country will reach the Sustainable Development Goal target 5.2 on the elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls.

García-Moreno C, Sardinha L, Amin A Getting to zero: what will it take to eliminate violence against women?The Lancet, 2026; 407, 924-926