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Women and girls

The UN Population Fund found violence against women and girls to be one of the most prevalent human rights violations worldwide, stating that "one in three women will experience physical or sexual abuse in her lifetime." Violence against women tends to be less prevalent in developed Western nations, and more normalized in the developing world.

Wife beating was made illegal nationally in the US by 1920. Although the exact rates are disputed, there is a large body of cross-cultural evidence that women are subjected to domestic violence significantly more often than men. In addition, there is broad consensus that women are more often subjected to severe forms of abuse and are more likely to be injured by an abusive partner, and this is exacerbated by economic or social dependence.

The 1993 UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (DEVAW) states that " violence against women is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women, which has led to domination over and discrimination against women by men and to the prevention of the full advancement of women, and that violence against women is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position compared with men". The DEVAW classifies violence against women into three categories: that occurring in the family (domestic violence), that occurring within the general community, and that perpetrated or condoned by the State.

The Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women defines violence against women as "any act or conduct, based on gender, which causes death or physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, whether in the public or the private sphere". Similarly with the DEVAW, it classifies violence against women into three categories; one of which being domestic violence – defined as violence against women which takes place "within the family, domestic unit or within any other interpersonal relationship, whether or not the perpetrator shares or has shared the same residence with the woman".

The Maputo Protocol of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights adopted a broader definition, defining violence against women as: "all acts perpetrated against women which cause or could cause them physical, sexual, psychological, and economic harm, including the threat to take such acts; or to undertake the imposition of arbitrary restrictions on or deprivation of fundamental freedoms in private or public life in peacetime and during situations of armed conflicts or of war".

The Istanbul Convention states: " ' violence against women' is understood as a violation of human rights and a form of discrimination against women..." (Article 3 – Definitions). In the landmark case of Opuz v Turkey, the European Court of Human Rights held for the first time that gender-based domestic violence is a form of discrimination under the European Convention.

According to one study, the percentage of women who have reported being physically abused by an intimate partner vary from 69% to 10% depending on the country. In the US, it is estimated that intimate partner violence accounts for 15% of all violent crime. Research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2017 found that over half of all female homicides are committed by intimate partners, 98% of whom are men.

Femicide is usually defined as the sex-based killing of women or girls by men, although the exact definitions vary. Feminist author Diana E. H. Russell first defined the term in 1976 as "the killing of females by males because they are female." Femicides often occur in the context of domestic violence, such as honor killings or dowry killings. For statistical purposes, femicide is often defined as any killing of a woman. The top countries by rate of femicide are El Salvador, Jamaica, Guatemala, South Africa and Mexico (data from 2004 to 2009). However, in El Salvador and Colombia, which have a very high rate of femicide, only 3% of all femicides are committed by a current or former intimate partner, while in Cyprus, France, and Portugal former and current partners are responsible for more than 80% of all cases of femicide.