One in three women worldwide has been a victim of physical or sexual violence at least once in her life, while in Cyprus more than 12,500 incidents of domestic violence have been recorded in the last five years.
The statistics were presented on Friday at a joint press conference carried out by the justice ministry and the Gender Equality commissioner, as a campaign was launched called “Preventing and Combating Violence against Women” with the slogan “gender violence is hiding in plain sight”.
The campaign will run across mass media and social media from November 25 until December 10.
Addressing the press conference, Justice Minister Marios Hartsiotis said that the campaign aims to inform and raise awareness across civil society on the extremely critical issue of gender-based violence.
The minister pointed out that the figures both at the international level, as well as at the European and national level are extremely shocking.
According to recent UN data, an estimated 736 million women, almost one in three women worldwide, has suffered physical or sexual violence at least once in her life.
In Cyprus, Hartsiotis said, in the last five years there have been 22 femicides, 12,544 incidents of domestic violence, while every year hundreds of women are in immediate danger of being exposed to various forms of violence.
He pointed out that even though gender-based violence is often difficult to recognise, most of the times it irreparably damages the physical, mental and emotional health of the victims, significantly diminishing their quality of life.
On her part, Gender Equality Commissioner Josie Christodoulou said that violence against women is an open wound for all societies. Referring to the assessment of gender-based violence in numbers, Christodoulou said that the situation is tragic.
Globally, one in three women faces violence because of their gender, she said and noted that in addition to the serious physical and psychological effects on the victims themselves and their health, the economic dimension of the phenomenon is also important.
Christodoulou said that violence has a cost, which results from covering the needs of care and protection of the victims from the day of reporting the incident until the adjudication of the case as well as from the loss of income due to their absence from work.
According to the European Institute for Gender Equality, violence against women costs in the €289 billion annually, while its global cost, according to the World Bank, is estimated at least $1.5 trillion annually, she added.
