UN champions prevention as best hope for eliminating violence against women | Division for Inclusive Social Development (DISD)

On a December evening in 2012, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student was beaten and brutally raped by five men and a youth on board an off-duty bus in the Indian capital, New Delhi. The injuries she sustained were so severe that she succumbed to them 13 days later, setting off protests in India and around the world for ending the scourge of violence against women.

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) was among the many voices that called for immediate reform of the sexual harassment laws in India, where a study conducted by the agency and the Government showed that nearly 54 per cent of women and 69 per cent of men who see women getting harassed prefer not to get involved.

Incidents such as that involving the student in New Delhi, now dubbed the ‘Nirbhaya’ rape case by the media, show a stark and truly disturbing reality of crimes committed against women. In 1993, the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, which provided a framework for action on the issue.

However, 20 years later, UN Women found that one in three women still experience physical or sexual violence, mostly by an intimate partner.

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