The study is based on interviews with more than 24 000 women
from rural and urban areas in 10 countries: Bangladesh, Brazil,
Ethiopia, Japan, Namibia, Peru, Samoa, Serbia and Montenegro,
Thailand, and the United Republic of Tanzania.
The study finds that one quarter to one half of all women who had
been physically assaulted by their partners said that they had
suffered physical injuries as a direct result. The abused women
were also twice as likely as non-abused women to have poor health
and physical and mental problems, even if the violence occurred
years before.
Although pregnancy is often thought of as a time when women should
be protected, in most study locations, between 4% and 12% of women
who had been pregnant reported being beaten during pregnancy. More
than 90% of these women had been abused by the father of the unborn
child and between one quarter and one half of them had been kicked
or punched in the abdomen.
For policy makers, the greatest challenge is that abuse remains
hidden. At least 20% of women reporting physical violence in the
study had never told anyone before being interviewed. Despite the
health consequences, very few women reported seeking help from
formal services like health and police, or from individuals in
positions of authority, preferring instead to reach out to friends,
neighbours and family members. Those who did seek formal support
tended to be the most severely abused.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr62/en/index.html
