Knowledge Hub

Every year the Women’s Aid Annual Impact Report serves as a harrowing and poignant reminder of the level of domestic violence and abuse against women and children that prevails in homes and relationships across Ireland. Unfortunately, 2023 was no different. This report provides an insight into the coercive and controlling emotional, physical, economic, and sexual abuses inflicted upon women and their children at the hands of current and former intimate partners, whom we supported during just...

The primary objectives of the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey are to describe: The prevalence and characteristics of sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence, Who is most likely to experience these forms of violence, The patterns and impact of the violence experienced by specific perpetrators, The health consequences of these forms of violence. The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey is an ongoing, nationally representative random digit...

This paper assesses the methodologies of the new national surveys of violence against women, including those in the US, Canada, Australia, Finland and the Netherlands, as well as the British Crime Survey. The development of large‐scale quantitative survey methodology so as to be suitable for such a sensitive subject has involved many innovations. The paper concludes with recommendations for further improvements including: the sampling frame, the scaling of both sexual assaults and range of...

Initial research into new questions aimed at identifying controlling or coercive behaviour. These crimes are less likely to be reported to the police, therefore it is important we find an effective way to measure these offences. This will provide insight for policymakers, service providers and charities.

The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) is a representative population survey that since the early 2000s has provided ongoing measurement of domestic abuse via a dedicated domestic abuse module, with regular publication of headline prevalence and other descriptive data. At the same time the measurement of domestic violence in the CSEW has also been the subject of ongoing debate and critique, in particular whether it is appropriate to use catch-all prevalence measures in the context of...

The purpose of these Guidelines is to assist humanitarian actors and communities affected by armed conflict, natural disasters and other humanitarian emergencies to coordinate, plan, implement, monitor and evaluate essential actions for the prevention and mitigation of gender-based violence (GBV) across all sectors of humanitarian response.

Even in the most challenging settings, UNICEF delivers innovative solutions to strengthen availability, accessibility and quality of GBV response services. With the COVID-19 pandemic, UNICEF had to capitalize further on its innovations in order to reach women and girls and help them to seek for help despite the lockdowns and quarantine restrictions enacted by Governments to respond to the pandemic.

This brief provides a summary of why gender-based violence in emergencies matters, alongside UNICEF's commitment and approach.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have newly developed “Caring for Child Survivors of Sexual Abuse Guidelines” for health and psychosocial providers in humanitarian settings – “CCS Guidelines”. The CCS Guidelines are based on global research and evidence-based field practice, and bring a much-needed fresh and practical approach to helping child survivors, and their families, recover and heal from the oftentimes devastating impacts of...

This resource aims to set standards for quality, compassionate care for GBV survivors in humanitarian settings, with particular focus on the provision of case management services. It builds upon and should be used in conjunction with other GBV response resources, such as the Caring for Survivors of Sexual Violence in Emergencies Training Package and the Caring for Child Survivors of Sexual Abuse: Guidelines for health and psychosocial service providers in humanitarian settings.

This synthesis review aims to draw out some cross-cutting best practices, challenges and lessons from 10 diverse interventions to prevent violence against adolescent girls across various settings. These interventions, each centred on a different form of violence against girls, were funded by the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women (UN Trust Fund). The interventions focused solely on adolescents (both boys and girls) or an adolescent-focused programme was a subcomponent of a wider...

This brief outlines adolescent girl-led approaches to GBV prevention and response in Middle East and North Africa including: access to gender-sensitive health information, peer-to-peer awareness in Syria, cross sectoral approaches to child marriage in Yemen and supporting adolescent girls empowerment and agency in Iraq.

This background paper was developed to synthesize evidence, including divergent expert opinions, on the collection and use of VAW administrative data. It was used as the technical document for an Expert Group Meeting (EGM) on Administrative Data on Violence Against Women convened in September 2019 by UN Women. The background paper and the discussions and recommendations coming out of the EGM will inform the development of global guidance on the collection and use of VAW administrative data.

This document provides a comprehensive statistical framework for measuring gender-based killings of women and girls (femicide/feminicide). In addition to the statistical definition of such killings, the framework identifies a typology of gender-based killings of women and girls and the list of variables that can be used to identify and quantify the different types of such killings.

UN Women conducted Rapid Gender Assessments on the impact of COVID-19 on violence against women (VAW RGAs) in 13 countries, in collaboration with Ipsos and with support from national statistical offices and national women’s machineries.The VAW RGAs provided a first opportunity to test existing guidance and recommendations on remote data collection for VAW, and as a result, gathered learnings and empirical evidence, both in terms of safety protocols and VAW measurement. This guidance offers a...

The rapidly growing access to and use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has resulted in a rise in technology-facilitated violence against women (TF VAW). Yet, accurate, reliable and comparable data on the extent of TF VAW are lacking to effectively inform and monitor targeted policies and programmes.

The global database is a unique “one-stop site” for information on the following types of measures undertaken by Governments to address violence against women: Institutional mechanisms; Research and statistical data; Laws; Policies; Budgets; Services; Prevention; Perpetrators programmes; Regional/International initiatives; Monitoring and evaluation

With the aim of galvanizing global action against this all-too-pervasive crime, UNODC and UN Women have joined forces to produce this research paper on the global estimates of gender-related killings of women and girls in the private sphere in 2021. This paper features policy recommendations to support comprehensive and multisectoral approaches to prevent and address gender-related killings and other forms of gender-based violence against women and girls.

This guidance is intended to help policymakers develop survivor-centred programming on ending violence against women and girls that meets the needs of diverse groups of women and girls, including those who are at higher risk of experiencing violence and discrimination. It is applicable to programming across the health, justice and policing, and social services sectors, as well as coordination of these sectors, and will help improve the standard and delivery of essential services for women and...

This global technical guidance has been developed by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO) through the Joint Programme on Violence Against Women Data and with invaluable advice from an advisory group of experts from UN agencies as well as independent experts.

With the aim of galvanizing global action against this crime, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and UN Women are publishing this second joint publication with global estimates of gender-related killings of women and girls by an intimate partner or family member, with data from 2022. This publication features policy recommendations to prevent gender-related killings, including through risk assessments and protective measures, the establishment of femicide observatories, the criminalization of...

How internet-connected devices can affect victims of gender-based domestic and sexual violence and abuse

This resource list is intended as supplementary material to better inform and guide victims and survivors of technology-facilitated abuse as well as those working with them.

Toolkit and templates for multi-sector data collection on gender-based violence. Designed in collaboration with Pacific multi-sector organisations.

This publication compiles and analyses the results of Rapid Gender Assessment surveys on the impact of COVID-19 on violence against women (VAW RGAs) in 13 countries.

This decision tree helps organisations with gender-based violence programmes, national statistical offices, policymakers and researchers decide when and how to best collect data on women's experiences of violence and their access and use of relevant services during the COVID-19 pandemic.

kNOwVAWdata's overview of the Sustainable Development Goal indicators on violence against women

As this leaflet sets out to show, administrative data, while having their utility as a source of information on violence against women, cannot provide an estimate of the prevalence of violence against women taking place within a population.

kNOwVAWdata's explanation of commonly used terminology related to violence against women

Surveys are the only way to collect data on the prevalence of violence against women (VAW) and thus to get an estimate of the magnitude of the problem in the population. There are two major approaches to collecting population-based data on violence against women using surveys; dedicated surveys or a set of questions/modules added to a large-scale survey.

UNFPA’s ultimate data source and tracker for population and development data. It combines the newest population data on topics like sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, family planning, maternal health, or gender based violence gathered from a multiple sources.

The shadow pandemic: Violence against women and girls and COVID-19. Data on violence against women during the COVID-19 pandemic

Ethical and Safety Recommendations for Research on Domestic Violence Against Women

This article describes some currently available survey data sets that contain information regarding women's experiences of intimate partner violence and health, identifies a number of the strengths and limitations of these data sets, and makes recommendations concerning the types of survey data that should be gathered in the future to help move the field forward.

This article draws upon the experiences of four researchers in the field of femicide, family and intimate partner homicide - and offers insights into processes, impacts and unintended consequences of fatality reviews and research initiatives

The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued new practice and policy guidelines to help health care practitioners screen, treat and support victims of sexual and partner violence.

A website that contains resources about how to support to recognise and reinforce primary prevention efforts in areas of crisis.