By Agustina Suaya, Karen Martínez, Monserrat Bustelo, Claudia Martínez

Violence against women (VAW) remains a pervasive and deeply entrenched issue, posing significant challenges to policymakers, researchers, and practitioners worldwide. This policy brief contributes to advancing the field by presenting new evidence on innovative approaches to VAW prevention and response. Despite increasing global attention, VAW prevention remains an evolving area of research, with critical gaps in understanding what interventions work, under what circumstances, and for whom (Araujo et al., 2024). The studies discussed in this document aim to address some of these gaps, focusing on key interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). In LAC, VAW persists at alarming levels. Twenty-five percent of women aged 15–49 have experienced physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner at some point in their lives, a figure that mirrors the global average of 27%. Furthermore, 11% of women in the region have faced sexual violence by non-partners, nearly double the global average of 6% (WHO, 2021). Psychological violence is even more widespread, with 64% of women in Colombia and 57% in Ecuador reporting such experiences (Araujo et al., 2024; Pispira et al., 2022). The region also faces the devastating toll of femicidal violence—the most extreme form of VAW. In 2022 alone, 4,050 women were victims of femicide across 26 LAC countries, with intimate partners or family members perpetrating a significant proportion of these crimes (ECLAC, 2023). Younger women are particularly vulnerable, with over 70% of femicide victims aged 15 to 44. These figures underline the critical need for comprehensive, evidence-based strategies to address the multifaceted nature of VAW.

POLICY BRIEF No IDB-PB-418

Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank Gender and Diversity Division , 2025. 18p.

Edited by Thiago Pierobom de Ávila, Aline Yamamoto, Cristina Elsner de Faria, Jude McCulloch, Kerry Carrington

This collection of articles is the fruit of a joint project implemented between Brazilian and Australian researchers and professionals committed to the work of gender and family violence prevention and response. With the support of the Australian Embassy in Brazil and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women Brazil Country Office, an innovative project was designed to support research exchange and strenghten academic collaboration, as well as foster a collaborative network of experts and professsionals, with the aim to enhance debate on gender and family violence prevention and extract lessons from both countries’ policy experiences. The Brazil-Australia Partnership on Preventing Domestic and Gender-based Violence project included several institutions. Amongst those institutions, it is important to highlight the role played by the Gender Equality Cabinet of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Federal District (MPDFT), along with the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre and the School of Justice of Queensland University of Technology in Australia, in the organization of international conferences and the coordination of this collection. This initiative also had the active participation of the São Paulo Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPSP), the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP), the Research Group on Criminal Policies of the Law Faculty at the University Center of Brasilia (UniCEUB), the Superior School of the Public Prosecutor of the Union (ESMPU), the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA), the Center for Studies and Research on Women at the University of Brasilia (UnB) and the Gender Observatory of the Brazilian Senate. From the Australian side, the project was financially supported by the Council on Australia Latin America Relations (COALAR), and additionally to the institutions previously mentioned, it also had the participation of Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS) and RMIT University. In June 2019, as part of the Project’s planning, a delegation of Australian professionals from governmental institutions, non-governmental organizations, academic and justice sectors came to Brazil (Brasilia and São Paulo) to explore the Brazilian policy framework and analyse program cases. Following it, in December 2019, a delegation of Brazilian experts went to Australia (Brisbane and Melbourne) to participate in expert workshops and conferences, as well as visit Australian successful programs for violence prevention. As a result, the project allowed an in-depth policy dialogue and advanced debates related to measuring the costs of domestic violence, as well as its impact on the economic growth. It also created opportunties to share good practices in gender equality policies, particularly primary prevention approaches, and to promote an integrated approach across the justice, public security and public health systems. The aim is to establish collaborative arrangements between both countries, contributing to policy development on gender and family violence prevention in Brazil and Australia.

Brasilia 2021 Ministério Público do Distrito Federal e Territórios, Brazil. 2021. 203p.

By European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, FRA; European Institute for Gender Equality

  This report presents, for the first time, selected key results of the EU gender-based violence survey based on data from all 27 Member States. Across the EU-27, 114 023 women were interviewed about their experiences. The report focuses on the prevalence of various forms of violence against women in the EU. The EU gender-based violence survey also collected specific data about women’s experiences of violence, including on the consequences of violence and contacts with different services that provide assistance to victims, as survivors of violence. Data on both the prevalence of violence and the consequences of violence will be analysed in detail in the survey report that Eurostat, FRA and EIGE will publish in 2025. In this report, the results are presented in four chapters, starting with the overall prevalence of physical violence or threats and/or sexual violence by any perpetrator. This is followed by two chapters that focus on violence perpetrated by women’s intimate partners and by other people (non-partners). The fourth chapter examines women’s experiences of sexual harassment at work. Finally, the report includes an annex that summarises the survey data collection methodology  

Vienna: FRA 2024. 48p.