HQ Team
July 30, 2024: About 24% of adolescent girls or close to 19 million globally have experienced physical or sexual violence by their intimate partner by the time they turn 20 years old, according to a WHO-funded report.
“Intimate partner violence is starting alarmingly early for millions of young women around the world,” said Dr Pascale Allotey, Director of WHO’s Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research Department.
“Given that violence during these critical formative years can cause profound and lasting harms, it needs to be taken more seriously as a public health issue – with a focus on prevention and targeted support.”
Intimate partner violence against adolescent girls: Regional and national prevalence estimates and associated country-level factors, analyzed both lifetime prevalence and prevalence over the past 12 months of physical and sexual partner violence against 15-19-year-old girls.
The report did not include other types of violence, including psychological violence, due to the lack of an agreed internationally comparable measure.
Oceania, sub-Saharan Africa
The worst affected regions are Oceania (47%) — a geographical region in the South Pacific Ocean that includes Australia, New Zealand, and other island nations in Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia — and central sub-Saharan Africa (40%).
The lowest rates are in central Europe (10%) and central Asia (11%). Between countries, there is also a substantive range — from an estimated 6% of adolescent girls subjected to such violence in the least affected countries, to 49% in those with the highest rates.
The WHO analysis found that intimate partner violence against adolescent girls was most common in lower-income countries and regions, in places where there are fewer girls in secondary school.
It is also prevalent where girls have weaker legal property ownership and inheritance rights compared to men.
Child marriage — before the age of 18 years — significantly escalates risks, since spousal age differences create power imbalances, economic dependency, and social isolation, all of which increase the likelihood of enduring abuse.
Psychological conditions
Partner violence can have devastating impacts on young people’s health, educational achievement, future relationships, and lifelong prospects.
From a health perspective, it heightens the likelihood of injuries, depression, anxiety disorders, unplanned pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, and many other physical and psychological conditions.
Currently, no country is on track to eliminate violence against women and girls by the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal target date, according to the report, in which researchers analyzed physical and sexual violence experienced by girls in the 15-19 age group.
Ending child marriage – which affects one in five girls globally– and expanding girls’ access to secondary education will be critical factors for reducing partner violence against adolescent girls.
“The study shows that to end gender-based violence, countries need to have policies and programmes in place that increase equality for women and girls,” said study author Dr Lynnmarie Sardinha, Technical Officer for Violence against Women Data and Measurement at the WHO.
“This means ensuring secondary education for all girls, securing gender-equal property rights and ending harmful practices such as child marriage, which are often underpinned by the same inequitable gender norms that perpetuate violence against women and girls.”
The study used data from WHO’s Global database on prevalence of violence against women, published in 2018, which draws on data collected between 2000 and 2018 from 161 countries.
