The UN health chief has flagged another global pandemic. This time it is violence against women, including women being beaten or killed in their homes through domestic violence even in countries like the United States, Switzerland and Sweden.
Pointing to the worst trends, World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Ghebreyesus noted that “violence against women is one of humanity’s oldest and most pervasive injustices, yet still one of the least acted upon. No society can call itself fair, safe or healthy while half its population lives in fear.”
A new report by the WHO and UN partners said. “Violence against women is a global problem of pandemic proportions. It causes devastating, harm to women’s lives and that of their children. It also hurts the economic and social health of their families, communities, and countries.”
Nearly 1 in 3 women – estimated 840 million globally – have experienced partner or sexual violence during their lifetime, a figure that has barely changed since 2000. In the last 12 months alone, 316 million women – 11% of those aged 15 or older – were subjected to physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner. About 263 million women have experienced non-partner sexual violence since age 15, a significantly under-reported figure due to stigma and fear. In the past year, 12.5 million adolescent girls 15-19 years of age or 16% have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner.
Violence can happen to any woman, in any country – regardless of culture, religion or economic status. For instance, Switzerland recorded a 6% increase in domestic violence offenses in 2024, and women accounting for nearly 70% of victims. In Sweden, 46 % of women have experienced violence, which is 13 % higher than in the EU overall where 1 in 3 women have experienced physical or sexual violence since the age of 15.
In the US, about 1 in 3 women experience rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime. Key issues include domestic violence, sexual assault, and trafficking, which disproportionately affect certain groups and can have severe physical and mental health consequences. Over one-third of women (35.6%) and one-quarter of men (28.5%) have experienced rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime. About 19.3% of women in the U.S. are raped at some point in their lives, and 43.9% experience other forms of sexual violence. A significant number of perpetrators are known to the victim, such as an acquaintance or intimate partner. Native American and Black women face higher risks of intimate partner violence homicide.
Alongside these risks grows another near pandemic, that of historically unprecedented income and social inequality escalating mostly unchecked around the world; a peace plan in Gaza that brings no social justice, autonomy or sustainable tranquility to that wrecked people; a peace plan for Russia/ Ukraine that ignores Ukrainian leaders and their European Union financiers and arms suppliers; a massive $100 million corruption scandal in Kyiv; and President Donald Trump’s accusations of “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH” against congressional Democrats telling soldiers to disobey “illegal orders” from him.
Such developments might seem unrelated but their underlying injustices are interdependent. Together, they signal a rush towards global chaos that is turning the world’s family of nations into a lawless field where strong militaries prey with impunity on the weak. Meanwhile, well-armed and war hardened terrorists proliferate, as many weak nations fail to secure safety in a crashing world system. The seeds of injustice are sprouting as more wars, hatreds and predatory economic behaviour.
Meanwhile, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz are crying in the wilderness about another global near pandemic that fuels civil wars, persistent poverty and terrorism. They have presented a scary report on global inequities at the G-20 in South Africa, which group founder United States has refused to attend because Trump asserts that Ramaphosa is “exterminating” traditionally powerful White Afrikaner landowners.
The report says a quarter of humanity, about 2.3 billion people, face moderate or severe food insecurity, an explosion compared to just 335 million in 2019. Gaps in wealth have accelerated over the past quarter century, with 90 percent of the world’s population living in societies shaped by high economic inequality. Most G-20 members, about 600 leading economists and 30 former world leaders want to see the creation of an international panel on inequality, where top scientists would track the scale of this planetary threat. But the US is using its proxies to scuttle that initiative. (ends).