Gender-based violence or violence against women is a global pandemic that affects one in three women throughout their lifetime from childhood to old age. The direct, indirect, visible, and hidden harms of violence against women and girls, and finding solutions to assess and combat it, have been brought to the forefront of human rights discussions worldwide over the past fifty years.

Fifty-five percent of women in the world have experienced physical violence and in some cases, it is accompanied by sexual violence, either within the family or in other situations (outside the family or with intimate partners).

Seven percent of women worldwide have been sexually assaulted by someone who was not their life partner.

At a global level, 68% of women’s murders are committed by their spouse or partner.

Two hundred million women have been subjected to violence, nudity, and sexual objectification.

These examples of various forms of violence against women not only have a heavy toll on the individual who has experienced it, but also incur significant social and economic costs for their families and society.

The World Bank estimated in its 2019 report that in some countries, 3.7% of the gross domestic product is attributed to the economic burden of violence against women and girls; a cost that is more than twice the budget allocated by governments for education. Additionally, the lack of effective strategies to combat violence against women and girls has serious consequences in terms of social harm; as various studies have shown that children raised in a violent environment are more likely to perpetuate violence.

The global community, over the past half century, has recognized violence against women and girls as one of the most significant violations of human rights through international conventions and the set of obligations of governments. Gender-based violence, including violence against women and girls, has been identified as a violation of the right to life, freedom, economic independence, freedom from discrimination, and the human right to security and health in both private and public spheres.

Gender-based violence has become ingrained in unequal power relations and is perpetuated in the cycle of patriarchal control. Unequal power relations, control, and violence are not limited to family relationships and the partners of LGBTQ individuals. Gender identities and expressions of sexual orientation are not barriers to the perpetration of violence.

Gender-based violence is a global problem and challenge in public health. From physically battered and bruised bodies to mentally depressed, degraded, and anxious minds, it is a serious public health issue that has a heavy social and economic burden. One of the characteristics of gender-based violence is that it affects women and girls at all levels of the economy, both in developed Western countries and in developing countries, making it a global pandemic. Combating violence against women and girls requires effective strategies from governments, political will based on the formulation of laws and economic priorities on one hand, and the commitment and accountability of all members of society, cultural education, and private sector involvement with the support of civil society on the other hand.

Factors such as poverty, unemployment, lack of women’s economic participation, economic dependence, and gender discrimination that challenge women’s independence, hidden structural discrimination and gender gaps within the patriarchal systems of many societies, increase the economic burden of gender-based violence in communities. In all international documents that refer to violence against women and girls as the cause and consequence of gender inequality, governments are encouraged to allocate the necessary budget and focus on preventive strategies to curb violence against women and girls, especially in the private sphere; because prevention of social harms is always more economically wise than the cost of dealing with it after the occurrence of violence and the resulting damages.

At the official conference in Beijing, human rights organizations, women and leading forces emphasized the need to allocate and include “innovative and additional” budget in the final document of the Fourth World Conference on Women of the United Nations, because government budgets, whether in developed Western countries or developing countries, have not been and are not responsive to the needs of combating the epidemic of violence against women and girls. Despite the fact that modern technology and increasing awareness of women’s human rights have made women in all countries of the world today powerful in terms of gender equality and their rights in private and public spheres, at home and in school, in the workplace and in political and economic participation, their demands are being challenged, but the lack of political will of governments has led to the fact that the process of combating gender-based violence has not been a hopeful and significant one.

Therefore, during the past decade, United Nations agencies and some influential forces of civil society have used the economic burden of violence against women, especially in the private sector, as a tool to raise awareness and motivate powerful actors in European and American countries to enact laws and policies.

It seems that these discussions are aimed at empowering those in positions of power in both the private and public sectors to put an end to gender-based violence in the private sphere and to strengthen the economic sector where women’s participation is essential to their economic interests. Governments, by allocating budgets, can not only achieve sustainable development goals, to which they have committed until 2025, including goal number five which is gender equality and women’s empowerment, but also invest in prevention to reduce the economic burden of violence against women and girls.

The United Nations estimates the economic cost of violence against women in the world to be a staggering one trillion dollars, which includes expenses incurred by the judicial system for cases of violence against women and girls, loss of work hours and economic productivity, costs of social services for victims of violence, and other related expenses.

According to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the United States, every year, eight million work days are lost due to gender-based violence. The economic cost of this violence is $8.3 billion per year. Individuals living in violent relationships have 35% less economic power and are at a higher risk of poverty compared to those who do not experience violence. Additionally, the average cost of intimate partner violence or violence among life partners during a lifetime is $103,767 for women and $23,414 for men.

In England, one-fourth of the budget of the judicial system is spent on domestic violence cases and the economic burden of gender-based violence is 23 billion pounds per year. This figure includes the costs of the judicial system, healthcare expenses, social services, housing, and legal support for victims of violence.

In Australia, a report in 2009 estimated the economic cost of violence against women and girls in 2021-2022 to be $15.6 billion, while the budget for Australia’s “education revolution” was estimated to be $5.9 billion.

According to a research conducted by United Nations organizations in 2018 on the economic burden of violence against women and girls in Arab countries, every year in Egypt, 500,000 working days are lost due to domestic violence.

It is clear from estimating the economic costs of violence, which have taken place in many countries around the world, that success in dealing with the pandemic of gender-based violence lies in policies and strategies that encourage women’s empowerment, reduce poverty, allow women to benefit from protective laws regarding violence in both the private and public spheres, create a safe public space for women’s economic and social participation, provide necessary social, mental, and physical services, seriously address child abuse and break the cycle of violence (which is considered violence, violence, and child abuse in many countries’ laws), and establish comprehensive and targeted national campaigns with government support and investment to promote and combat attitudes and beliefs that have been ingrained in history, in order to diminish and eradicate the culture of violence.

The situation of Iran

The Iranian society suffers from numerous and widespread forms of violence against women and girls in both private and public spheres. Discriminatory laws, especially in the family sector, lack of a responsive judicial system in enforcing justice, a huge gap between educated women and their lack of economic opportunities, unemployment in all economic, social, cultural, and income-generating fields, not only impose economic violence on half of the Iranian society (i.e. women) who have the ability and potential for economic participation, but also burden the government with the high costs of gender-based violence in the private sphere of the family and the public sphere. There is no political determination to allocate budget and monitor its implementation. Women are the poorest of the poor in Iran and poverty is undoubtedly a feminine face.

The cycle of violence and control has affected multiple generations of youth. Women have not only experienced structural economic violence, but also bear the cost of economic consequences of domestic violence and gender-based violence that they are subjected to outside the family, in some cases even risking their lives.

The suicide of Farahnaz Khalili, a 25-year-old photographer from Bushehr, who after filing a complaint against a landowner for sexual assault in court, was faced with bad and unethical behavior from the judge, is a recent and prominent example of the gender-based violence in a society that has taken steps backwards in closing the gender gap over the past four decades. This violence is both structural and requires a cultural transformation.

Furthermore, violence against women is neither considered a crime nor is it addressed. Following a series of acid attacks in Isfahan in recent days, there have been shootings targeting Isfahani girls and continuous violent behavior towards women and girls in public spaces. This has caused economic burden for those who have been subjected to violence and their families. Additionally, in Iran, necessary social and judicial services are not provided to citizens who have experienced violence. There are no safe houses available to protect individuals who are at risk of violence or honor killings. The widespread dimensions of structural, cultural, economic, and social violence against women in Iran have deprived them of their human rights and do not respect their human dignity. May it be that we break the ceiling of the sky and create a new plan.