Keynote Lecture

Violence against women and girls: a global overview                                     

Violence against women and girls - in its multiple forms - is an important human rights abuse, and public health problem. There is a growing body of population-based evidence on the prevalence of different forms of violence, with global estimates suggesting that at least one in three women has experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime, and that every third murdered woman is murdered by an intimate partner. Prevalence of intimate partner violence and non-partner violence varies widely across regions and population groups, highlighting important risk and protective factors that lead to an increase or decrease in intimate partner violence. Violence against women and girls is not only a public health issue in itself, it is also associated with a number of adverse health outcomes such as depression and anxiety, alcohol use, miscarriage, and injuries as well as unhealthy behaviours, including risky sexual behaviour. Violence against women and girls is preventable, with strong evidence on effective programming including in the health sector.
Tackling violence against women and girls is a policy priority for many governments and international governmental and non-governmental organisations seeking to improve the lives and health of women, children, families and men. This talk will provide an overview of the conceptualisation prevalence and measurement of violence against women and girls, its health impacts, risk and protective factors and summarise evidence and guidance on effective prevention strategies and health sector responses.

Heidi Stöckl is a Professor of Public Health Evaluation at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Germany. Prior to Joining LMU, she has been a professor of Social Epidemiology at the Department for Global Health and Development at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Prior to that she has completed her DPhil in Evidence-based Social Intervention at the University of Oxford, Nuffield College, conducting the first study on intimate partner violence during pregnancy in Germany. Heidi Stöckl also holds an MSc in Sociology from the University of Oxford and a Diplom in Political Science from the Free University Berlin. Heidi Stöckl is currently holding an ERC Starting Grant to investigate the risk and protective factors and consequences of intimate partner violence through a mixed-methods longitudinal study in Mwanza, Tanzania.