U.N. report faults countries’ efforts to curb domestic violence
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Homicide accounts for nearly a half-million fatalities worldwide each year and is the third-leading cause of death among men aged 15-44, the United Nations said Wednesday in a new report on the prevention of domestic violence.
The report, based on detailed data collection from 133 countries representing 88 percent of the global population, also said that nonfatal violence had taken an insidious toll on women and children.
One in 4 children have been physically abused, the report said, and 1 in 5 girls have been sexually abused. One in 3 women have been victims of physical or sexual violence committed by intimate partners at some point in their life, the report said.
The report was intended to assess efforts to address domestic violence – child maltreatment, youth violence, intimate partner and sexual violence, and elder abuse.
The report said that 475,000 homicides were committed in 2012, the most recent year of data collection, making it the third-largest cause of death – excluding wars and organized conflicts – for men aged 15-44, behind HIV/AIDS and traffic fatalities.
The report, a collaboration of the World Health Organization, the U.N. Development Program and the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, asserted that many governments pay insufficient attention to domestic violence prevention or intervention.
Only one-third of the countries surveyed offer services to reduce or prevent the problem, such as anti-bullying programs in schools, home-nurse visits to families at risk or support for caregivers to older people.
Half the countries surveyed have no intervention services to protect or support victims of violence.
While 80 percent of the countries have enacted laws that are generally acknowledged to prevent violence, the report said, only slightly more than half are enforcing them.
Despite strong evidence that links violent trauma to mental health problems, the report said, fewer than half the countries surveyed offer mental health services to address victims’ needs. Only 15 percent of countries in Africa, where the needs are especially acute, offer such services, the report stated.
It also found that only one-third of the countries surveyed have developed programs to improve parenting in families at risk of violence, and fewer than 25 percent of them have developed public information campaigns to prevent elder abuse.