NOTE: ALL INFORMATION ON THIS PAGE COMES FROM THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
According to the World Health Organization, risk factors for both intimate partner and sexual violence include:
- lower levels of education
- perpetration or experience of sexual violence
- a history of exposure to child abuse and mistreatment (perpetration and experience)
- witnessing family violence (perpetration and experience);
- antisocial personality disorder
- alcohol abuse (perpetration and experience)
- having multiple partners or being suspected by their partners of infidelity
- normalization of violence, either in personal attitude or societal outlook
- community norms that privilege or ascribe higher status to men and lower status to women
- low levels of women’s access to paid employment.
Factors specifically associated with intimate partner violence include:
- past history of violence
- marital discord and dissatisfaction
- difficulties in communicating between partners
- male controlling behaviors towards their partners.
Factors specifically associated with sexual violence perpetration include:
- beliefs in family honour and sexual purity
- ideologies of male sexual entitlement
- weak legal sanctions for sexual violence.
Gender inequality and norms on the acceptability of violence against women are a root cause of violence against women.
The link to the WHO page detailing these risk factors can be found below: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women