Violence against women

Violence against women and girls is widespread in New Zealand. Women are more likely than men to suffer abuse from a partner, including repeat victimisation, and are more likely to suffer sexual violence. The impacts of violence are serious, long-lasting, and too often fatal. 

The United Nations, in the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, defines violence against women as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.” 

The World Health Organisation conducted a 2018 analysis of prevalence data from 2000-2018 across 161 countries and areas and found that worldwide nearly one in three, or 30%, of women have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner or non-partner sexual violence, or both. 

There are enormous social and economic costs of intimate partner and sexual violence. It has ripple effects right through society, including women experiencing isolation, losing their ability to work, losing wages, being unable to participate in regular activities, and a limited ability to care for themselves and their children.

In the 2014 report, Measuring the Economic Costs of Child Abuse and Intimate Partner Violence to New Zealand, family violence was estimated to cost the country between $4.1 and $7 billion each year. 

Women and girls around the world experience a range of different types of violence every day. UN Women have published a comprehensive list of the types of violence that women and girls experience around the world and have provided resources to support victims.

Below are five types of violence that women in Aotearoa New Zealand experience.