Knowledge Hub

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.

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 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

This sixth edition of The World’s Women: Trends and Statistics provides the latest statistics and analysis on the status of women and men at global and regional levels and reviews the progress towards gender equality over the last 20 years. The eight chapters of the report cover several broad policy areas identified in the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action, the framework that set the international agenda for improving the status of women. These areas include population and families, health,...

This research brief focuses on the prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) for each of the five countries where data was collected – both lifetime and current prevalence rates of IPV. The focus is on IPV because it is one of the most common types of VAWG. This brief also focuses on the causes and consequences of IPV, including risk factors associated with physical and/or sexual IPV at both the national and regional levels.

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...

Under Sustainable Development Goal 5, prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) is a globally reportable indicator. There is a lack of consensus on how to measure and report psychological IPV, affecting prevalence estimates and cross-country comparability. We examine similarities and differences in the patterning of women's experiences of psychological abuse in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to inform common cut points.

A scoping review with a focus on measurement to assess the forms of measurement and study design utilized to explore the intersection of violence against women with disabilities, and to identify strengths and limitations in current approaches to measuring violence against women with disabilities. This scoping review is designed to inform current debates and discussions regarding how to generate evidence concerning violence against women with disabilities.

This briefing note, which focuses on the measurement of violence against women with disability, is one in a series of methodological briefing notes for strengthening the measurement and data collection of violence against particular groups of women or specific aspects of violence against women.

This checklist is designed to help national statistics offices and other national research and data institutions and research teams to think through the steps needed to produce high-quality survey data on intimate partner violence — from the planning stages through to analysis, report write-up and dissemination of accurately interpreted findings. This checklist addresses the specificities of measuring the prevalence of intimate partner violence — one of the most common forms of violence women...

This WHO Global Database on Prevalence of Violence against Women is a comprehensive database on the prevalence of the two most common forms of violence against women globally: Intimate partner violence and sexual violence by someone other than a partner, referred to as non-partner sexual violence. This interactive data visualization platform presents the first global, regional and country/area estimates on intimate partner violence and global and regional estimates on non-partner sexual...

This report is based on an analysis of available prevalence data from surveys and studies conducted between 2000 and 2018, obtained through a systematic and comprehensive review of all available data on the prevalence of these two forms of violence against women.

This is an overview of key concepts on violence against women data that can be applied globally. It is intended to serve as a complementary resource to a longer technical report entitled "A Guide to Better Understanding and Using Violence Against Women Prevalence Data."

Guidelines in this publication provide concepts and principles for the process of interpreting, understanding and using violence against women prevalence data that can be applied globally. A case study with survey data from eleven Pacific island countries is used to illustrate how VAW prevalence data can be analysed and compared to reveal interesting and nuanced patterns in violent behaviour and its drivers of violence.

kNOwVAWdata, DFAT and UNFPA, together with the University of Melbourne, brought together national, regional and global experts to discuss what approaches should be taken to ensure that women with disabilities are better represented in national prevalence studies on violence against women.

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.

The Due Diligence and State Responsibility to Eliminate Violence against Women: Standards, Indicators and Good Practices project is a research-advocacy project that is collecting good practices and State actions in the formulation, implementation and enforcement of policies, laws, procedures and processes in relation to violence against women.

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.

Collecting quality and reliable data on violence against women through special surveys is crucial if we want to understand and end the scourge. Drawing on years of international experience, our UNFPA Asia-Pacific technical advisor on violence against women, Dr. Henriette Jansen, shares six golden principles for interviewing women who may have experienced violence.

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.

UNFPA's first geospatial dashboard on IPV features national data for 119 countries, sub-national data, and disaggregated data on IPV by age, place of residence, employment, education, and household wealth.

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 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 dashboard of IPV that features "levels, trends and sociodemographic and geographic, within and across countries, disparities in intimate partner violence in the past 12 months among ever-partnered women."

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