Domestic Violence Statistics:

• One in four women has experienced domestic violence in her lifetime. (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and The National Institute of Justice, Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence, July     2000. The Commonwealth Fund, Health Concerns Across a Woman’s Lifespan: 1998 Survey of Women’s Health, 1999)
• Approximately one in five female high school students reports being physically and/or sexually abused by a dating partner. (Jay G. Silverman, PhD; Anita Raj, PhD; Lorelei A. Mucci, MPH; and Jeanne E. Hathaway, MD, MPH, “Dating Violence Against Adolescent Girls and Associated Substance Use, Unhealthy Weight Control, Sexual Risk Behavior, Pregnancy, and Suicidality,” Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 286, No. 5, 2001)
• On average more than three women a day are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in the United States. In 2005, 1,181 women were murdered by an intimate partner. (Family Violence Prevention Fund)
• Women who have experienced domestic violence are 80 percent more likely to have a stroke, 70 percent more likely to have heart disease, 60 percent more likely to have asthma and 70 percent more likely to drink heavily than women who have not experienced intimate partner violence. (Family Violence Prevention Fund)
  
• In a single day in 2008, 16,458 children were living in a domestic violence shelter or transitional housing facility. Another 6,430 children sought services at a non-residential program. (Family Violence Prevention Fund)
• Every nine seconds, a woman is battered by in the United States by her husband, boyfriend, or live-in partner. (State Certified and Nationally Accredited http://www.womenindistress.org)
• There are 572,000 reports of domestic violence that are officially reported to federal officials each year; however, the most conservative estimates indicate two to four million women of all races and classes are battered each year. And at least 170,000 of those violent incidents are serious enough to require hospitalization, emergency room care or a doctor’s attention. (State Certified and Nationally Accredited-www.womenindistress.org)
• Approximately 8.8 million children witness domestic violence each year. Of men who abuse women, 40-60% abuse children as well. (State Certified and Nationally Accredited- http://www.womenindistress.org)

Sex Trafficking Internationally and Domestically:

• There are girls as young as 5 and 6 years old in the U.S. that are forced to do sexual acts for economic gain by their pimp (USDOJ)iv
• 80% – Percent of transnational victims who are women and girls. Source: (U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report: 2007)
• 32 billion – Total yearly profits generated by the human trafficking industry. o $15.5 billion is made in industrialized countries. o $9.7 billion in Asia o $13,000 per year generated on average by each “forced laborer.” This number can be as high as $67,200 per victim per year.  (Source: ILO, A global alliance against forced labor: 2005)

Human Trafficking of U.S. citizens within the U.S.:

• 244,000 – Number of American children and youth estimated to be at risk of child sexual exploitation, including commercial sexual exploitation, in 2000. (Source: Estes, Richard J. and Neil A. Weiner. The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. The University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work: 2001. Study funded by the Department of Justice)
• 38,600 – Estimated number of an approximate 1.6 million runaway/thrownaway youth at risk of sexual endangerment or exploitation in 1999. (Source: U.S. Department of Justice: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Runaway/Thrownaway Children: National Estimates and Characteristics. NISMART Series: 2002)
• 12-14 – Average age of entry into prostitution (Source: Estes, Richard J. and Neil A. Weiner. The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. The University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work: 2001)

Fatal Violence Against Women Internationally:

• Approximately once every 2 hours, a practice known as “Bride Burning” takes place in India, due to inadequate dowry or to eliminate her so the man can remarry. (Half The Sky, Nicholas D. Kristoff & Sheryl WuDunn, published by George Washington University)
• Amartya Sen, a Nobel Prize Winning Economist, found that over 100 million women are missing- and that was in 1990

Honor Killings:

The perceived dishonor is normally the result of one of the following behaviors, or the suspicion of such behaviors: (a) dressing in a manner unacceptable to the family or community, (b) wanting to terminate or prevent an arranged marriage or desiring to marry by own choice, (c) engaging in heterosexual sexual acts outside marriage, or even due to a non-sexual relationship perceived as inappropriate, and (d) engaging in homosexual acts. Women and girls are killed at a much higher rate than men.

• The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates that perhaps as many as 5,000 women and girls a year are killed by members of their own families.Many women’s groups in the Middle East and Southwest Asia suspect the victims are at least four times more.
• As many as 133 women were killed in the Iraqi city of Basra alone in 2006—79 for violation of “Islamic teachings” and 47 for honor killings, according to IRIN, the news branch of the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Amnesty International says that armed groups, not the government, also kill politically active women and those who did not follow a strict dress code, as well as women who are perceived as human rights defenders.
• Over the course of six years, more than 4,000 women have died as victims of honour killings in Pakistan from 1999 to 2004. In 2005 the average annual number of honor killings for the whole nation was stated to be more than 10,000 per year. According to women’s rights advocates, the concepts of women as property, and of honor, are so deeply entrenched in the social, political and economic fabric of Pakistan that the government mostly ignores the regular occurrences of women being killed and maimed by their families.” Frequently, women killed in “honour” killings are recorded as having committed suicide or died in accidents (Yasmeen Hassan, “The Haven Becomes Hell: A Study of Domestic Violence in Pakistan,” The Fate of Pakistani Women, 1995 August, 72 p. (Special Bulletin), Johns Hopkins Bloomberg)

Genital Mutilation on young girls and women:

• The World Health Organization estimates 100 million to 140 million girls and women worldwide have been circumcised.

Maternal Mortality Rates in a table from WHO 2008: