With close to 6 per cent of women reporting having experienced non-partner sexual violence at some point in their life, sexual violence by unknown men is neither rare nor geographically isolated, a report published in latest edition of The Lancet has said.
Multi-country studies and reviews have shown that 0·3 to 11·5 per cent of women have experienced non-partner sexual violence, suggesting that existing laws and systems of accountability remain inadequate.
Effective responses would require widespread legal and institutional change, the report by Naeemah Abrahams and colleagues says.
The study systematically reviewed 7,231 case studies that yielded 412 estimates of the prevalence of non-partner sexual violence in 56 countries.
Non-partner sexual violence means that a person has been forced to have sex or to perform a sexual act when she did not want to, by anyone other than an intimate partner including acquaintances, colleagues, family members, and military personnel and police.
The authors highlight comparisons of regional estimates of non-partner sexual violence.
The highest estimates were in central (21 per cent) and southern (17·4 per cent) sub-Saharan Africa. The lowest prevalence was seen in south Asia (3·3 per ).
‘Landmark study’“The study is a landmark in its scale and rigour and offers unique evidence that confirms the need to address this public health challenge and violation of human rights worldwide. The authors estimate that between 1998 and 2011, 7·2 per cent of women aged 15 years or older experienced non-partner sexual violence. This estimate has substantial political and scientific importance and, for both reasons, warrants comment,” says Kathryn M. Yount in her article, “Worldwide prevalence of non-partner sexual violence.”
One major challenge faced by the authors was the use of variable definitions for non-partner sexual violence.
The term includes a range of victim-perpetrator relationships, sexual acts, and forms of coercion and contexts of vulnerability.
However, 91·5 per cent of the studies included relied on single, general questions that related to forced sex or forced sexual acts against a woman’s wishes.
The non-specificity about the range of potential perpetrators and acts might substantially underestimate the scale of non-partner sexual violence against women, the article points out.
