Submitted by World Health Organization *

1. It is only in the last decade that violence against women was put on the international agenda, largely through the tireless efforts of women's organizations worldwide. In 1993, the International Conference on Human Rights recognized that women's rights were human rights and that violence against women was an abuse of women's human rights. That same year, the UN General Assembly approved a Declaration for the Elimination of Violence against Women (VAW) which clearly identified violence against women as being based on gender inequality and called on governments to recognize it and respond. In 1995 the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing dedicated a chapter of its platform of action to violence and in 1996i, the World Health Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) passed a Resolution declaring the prevention of violence, including violence against women and children, as a public health problem requiring urgent action. 2. WHO's own work on violence against women started in 1995. Hardly any data was available on the magnitude of the problem or its consequences 10 years ago. ii WHO therefore decided to implement as one of its first endeavours in this area a multi-country study to look into the prevalence of violence, particularly intimate partner violence, and its consequences o