4 Where does India stand globally in intimate partner violence?
The World Health Organisation’s Global Database on the Prevalence of Violence Against Women provides a consolidated database on the prevalence of intimate partner violence in 158 countries. These numbers are based on the latest national level surveys conducted between 2000 and 2018. More recent data is not available. WHO records the self-reported responses of women who have experienced one or more acts of physical or sexual violence or both by a current or former husband or male intimate partner (informal relationships) since the age of 15. It shows that 18% of Indian women aged between the ages of 15 to 49 suffered at least one form of intimate partner violence in the preceding 12 months. This figure puts India in the 33rd highest spot within 156 countries for which a comparable estimate was available. To put things in perspective, Indian women are less susceptible to intimate partner violence than women in Bangladesh (23%) and Afghanistan (35%), but more susceptible than Pakistan (16%), Nepal (11%) and Sri Lanka (4%), and major industrialised nations in the world. If one looks at the percentage of women who have suffered intimate partner violence in their entire lifetime, these numbers are higher. About 35% of Indian women aged between 15 and 49 have experienced at least one form of intimate partner violence in their entire lifetime, placing India in the 33rd position among 151 countries (for which a comparable estimate was available).