UN Meetings

• Expert Group Meeting on Indicators to Measure Violence Against Women, October 2007
  
  
• Work session on gender statistics, September 2006
  
  
• Expert group meeting on statistics and data on violence against women, April 2005
  
  
• Work session on gender statistics, October 2004
  

UN Reports

• UNDAW, UNECE, UNSD. (2007). Report of the Expert Group Meeting on Indicators to Measure Violence Against Women.
  
  
• UNECLAC (2007). No more! The right of women to live a life free of violence in Latin America and the Caribbean
  
  
• UNECE. (2006). Analysis of national surveys carried out by the countries of the conference of European statisticians to measure violence against women. UNECE Task Force on Measurement of Violence Against Women.
  
  
• UNDAW, UNECE, WHO . (2005). “Violence against women: a statistical overview, challenges and gaps in data collection and methodology and approaches for overcoming them”
  
  
• UNDAW . “In-depth study on all forms of violence against women” Report of the Secretary-General

• Kishor, Sunita. (2005). “ Domestic violence measurement in the demographic and health surveys: The history and the challenges”. Division for the Advancement of Women.

The paper provides some concise historical background of defining, identifying and measuring violence against women (VAW). It further outlines different approaches used in the DHS to measure VAW, the advantages of measuring the phenomenon through DHS, and, finally, identifies some gaps and challenges in the measurement of VAW via DHS.

• Nevala, Sami. (2005). “ International Violence Against Women Survey (IVAWS)”. Division for the Advancement of Women.

The paper provides ample overview of the development and the nature of the International Violence Against Women Survey (IVAW) as a single tool to measure VAW in an internationally comparable manner.

• Tjaden, Patricia. (2005). “ Defining and measuring violence against women: Background, issues, and recommendations”. Division for the Advancement of Women.

The paper presents the historical background that provided for the emergence of VAW as a subject area. It also presents the different approaches adopted towards VAW (i.e. criminal justice perspective, health perspective, as well as human rights perspective) and the implications of each approach on defining, measuring and addressing VAW. Finally, the paper discusses surveillance systems that are currently in place in the USA to detect and measure the phenomenon.

• Walby, Sylvia. (2005). “ Improving the statistics on violence against women”. Division for the Advancement of Women .

The paper tackles diverse issues of conceptualising and operationalising the VAW phenomenon. It also provides some insides from different countries’ experiences with measuring the phenomenon and recommendations as to making data on VAW more internationally comparable.

• Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics: Statistics Canada. (2006). “Violence Against Women: Assessing the prevalence of violence against women in Canada ”.

Sound statistical data is critical for the development of appropriate policies, legislation and services for women affected by violence. Significant progress has been made in Canada over the past twelve years in the breadth and scope of surveys designed to assess the extent of violence against women and societal responses to it. This paper argues that national statistical agencies have a leadership role to play in the design and implementation of surveys on violence against women to ensure that standards of scientific rigour are met and the work is done in an ethical manner.

• Co-ordination Action on Human Rights Violations (CAHRV) (2006). “State of European research on the prevalence of interpersonal violence and its impact on health and human rights”.
  
  
• Hagemann-White, Carol. (2006). “Violence Against Women: Comparative reanalysis of prevalence and health impact data in Europe – obstacles and possible solutions. Testing a comparative approach on selected studies”. University of Osnabrück .

Comparison of prevalence data over time and between countries can help us to understand if and to what extent they reflect a common and unchanging social problem, and to consider possible explanations for differences, changes and continuities. Thus the EU-funded research network “Coordination Action on Human Rights Violations (CAHRV) has among its objectives collecting state-of-the-art studies and developing and testing a common framework for cross-national re-analysis. However, accurate data comparison is more difficult than it seems at first sight; even small differences in data collection, time frames, acts and contexts limit comparability. This paper present some preliminary results and discusses the challenges; an extensive comparative paper will be published on the CAHRV website.

• Lancaster University : United Kingdom . (2006). “Towards International Standards for Data Collection and Statistics on Violence against Women”.

In the context of the tremendous and rapid developments at national and international level in the development of survey methodology for the collection of data on violence against women, it is timely to consider the development of international standards. There are two key elements: first, the indicators for which the data is being collected; secondly, the survey methodology necessary to produce such statistical data in an internationally comparative form in the context of a mainstreaming strategy. The indicators need to be simple, meaningful, robust and relevant to a range of international settings. They should measure both extent and severity, including prevalence, number of incidents per population unit, and level of injury. The methodology needs to include a comprehensive sampling frame that does not exclude marginal and disadvantaged groups; the conditions for disclosure of sensitive events, such as self-completion; and an adequate sample size.

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UN Resolutions

• Intensification of efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women, UN General Assembly resolution 61/143 of 30 January 2007
  
  
• Elimination of violence against women, Commission on Human Rights resolution 2003/45
  
  
• Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, General Assembly resolution 48/104 of 20 December 1993
  
  
• Beijing Declaration, Action for Equality, Development and Peace, Beijing , China - September 1995
  
  
• Division for the Advancement of Women. Work of the General Assembly on violence against women