We’ve come further than you think

Violence against women is endemic across the world. One third or more of the world's women experience abuse, violence or hurt, at the hands of men during their lifetimes. What's more, these are often men who they know and who may profess to care for them. This upsetting statistic comes, not from a feminist polemic, but from the World Health Organization, the most august health body globally. Wherever we live, we hear, on an almost daily basis, about women being killed, about violence in the name of so-called ‘honour’, sexual violations, rape – the distressing list is endless. Gender-based violence, as it is frequently called these days, is endemic in war and conflict, with reports – again almost daily – of terrifying sexual violence against women in conflict zones. And if you look up and down your own street, you can be sure that, in some of those homes, maybe including yours, domestic abuse will be happening.

It is easy to be overwhelmed by the magnitude of violence against women, to feel that things will never improve. But this short book takes a different tack. For 50 years now, the most recent manifestations of the long campaigning struggle by women, and some men too, to combat gender violence have been underway across the world. The gains have been huge in terms of women who have been assisted, services provided, policies put in place, research done, professionals trained, public awareness raised – and resulting social change. We can see that violence against women is shatteringly common everywhere. But we can also see that there have been many steps forward in building a safer and more just world for both women and children. Thus, the intention of this book is to show there is hope. There are actually changes everywhere, even if they are small in some places. As in the very first words of this book: we’ve come further than you think.

What is meant by the terms ‘domestic violence’ and ‘violence against women’?

Domestic violence, frequently intimate and sometimes extreme and long-term, occurs widely across the world – in fact, in every country. Most frequently (although not always), it is committed by men against women.