Abuse In America

  • 4 million American women experience a serious assault by a partner during an average 12-month period. 1
     
  • On the average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends every day.2
  • 92% of women say that reducing domestic violence and sexual assault should be at the top of any formal efforts taken on behalf of women today.3
  • 1 out of 3 women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime.4
  • 1 in 5 female high school students reports being physically and/or sexually abused by a dating partner. Abused girls are significantly more likely to get involved in other risky behaviors. They are 4 to 6 times more likely to get pregnant and 8 to 9 times more likely to have tried to commit suicide.5
  • 1 in 3 teens reports knowing a friend or peer who has been hit, punched, slapped, choked or physically hurt by his/her partner.6
  • Women of all races are equally vulnerable to violence by an intimate partner.7
  • 37% of all women who sought care in hospital emergency rooms for violence–related injuries were injured by a current or former spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend.8
  • Some estimates say almost 1 million incidents of violence occur against a current or former spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend per year. 9
  • For 30% of women who experience abuse, the first incident occurs during pregnancy.10
  • As many as 324,000 women each year experience intimate partner violence during their pregnancy. 11
  • Violence against women costs companies $72.8 million annually due to lost productivity.12
  • 74% of employed battered women were harrassed by their partner while they were at work.13
  • Ninety-four percent of the offenders in murder-suicides were male.14
  • Seventy-four percent of all murder-suicides involved an intimate partner (spouse, common-law spouse, ex-spouse, or boyfriend/girlfriend). Of these, 96 percent were females killed by their intimate partners.14
  • Most murder-suicides with three or more victims involved a "family annihilator" -- a subcategory of intimate partner murder-suicide. Family annihilators are murderers who kill not only their wives/girlfriends and children, but often other family members as well, before killing themselves.14
  • Seventy-five percent of murder-suicides occurred in the home.14
     

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1. Henise, L., Ellsberg, M. and Geottemoeller, M. Ending Violence Against Women, Population Reports, Series L, No. 11., December 1999.


2. Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001. February 2003.

3. Liz Claiborne Inc., study on Teen dating abuse conducted by Teenage Research Unlimited, February 2005.

4. Jay G. Silverman, PhD; Anita Raj, PhD; Lorelei A. Mucci, MPH; and Jeannie E. Hathaway, MD, MPH, “Dating Violence Against Adolescent Girls and Associated Substance Use, Unhealthy Weight Control, Sexual Risk Behavior, Pregnancy , and Suicidality,” Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 286, No. 5, 2001.

5. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Violence Against Women: Estimates from the Redesigned Survey, August 1995.

6. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003.

7. US. Department of Justice, Violence? Related Injuries Treated in Hospital Emergency Departments, August 1997.

8. US Department of Justice

9. The Commonwealth Fund, Health Concerns Across a Woman’s Lifespan: 1998 Survey of Women’s Health, May 1999.

10. Helton et al 1987.

11. Gazmararian JA, Petersen R, Spitz AM, Goodwin MM, Saltzman LE, Marks JS. “Violence and reproductive health; current knowledge and future research directions.” Maternal and Child Health Journal 2000; 4(2):79-84

12. Costs of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in the United States. 2003. Center for disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Atlanta, GA/

13. Family Violence Prevention Fund. 1998. The Workplace Guide for Employer, Unions, and Advocates, San Francisco, CA.

14. Violence Policy Center (VPC), American Roulette: Murder-Suicide in the United States, April 2006