Costs Beyond Measure: Gender-based Violence and its Socio-Economic Impacts on Society
On March 8 we celebrate International Women's Day. This years' theme is "gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow". The COVID-19 pandemic has not only exacerbated poverty and had disastrous impacts on livelihoods worldwide, hampering sustainable development and fulfillment of human rights. It has also severely increased the levels of gender-based violence (GBV) worldwide, often called the “shadow pandemic”. As we start focusing back on the sustainable development goals (SDGs), it is crucial to understand the link between sustainable economic development, GBV and gender equality. Building a sustainable future for all includes dismantling structures of discrimination and placing human rights at the center of policy and action.
Gender-based violence (GBV) not only refers to physical or sexual violence but includes any harmful act, perpetrated against a person’s will that results from abuse of power and is based on the inequality between men and women. It includes acts that cause mental or emotional harm or suffering, threats of such actions, coercion and other deprivation of liberty or economic resources. The majority of GBV survivors are female and individuals from the LGBTIQ+ community are also at a high risk of GBV. GBV Acts violate a number of universal Human Rights protected by international and national laws and conventions. The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 5.2 calls for the “elimination of all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres.” However, globally, GBV and violence against women and girls has reached pandemic levels – one in three women is estimated to have experienced violence throughout her lifetime with detrimental consequences not only for the individuals, the affected communities and the society as a whole, but also for the economy. This has been exacerbated even further by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Understanding the economic cost implications of GBV provides additional arguments for why prevention and response to GBV should be a top priority for governments, donors and the private sector: violence against women is estimated to cost countries up to 3.7 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) prior to the COVID-19 pandemic due to loss of income, opportunities and workplace productivity, as well as the costs associated with provision of services, such as social services and medical treatments or the criminal justice system. The total cost of gender-based violence in the EU has been estimated to be close to 109 billion Euros per year in a report recently published by the European Institute for gender equality (EIGE). This is likely to have severely increased due to the stark rise of GBV cases during the pandemic and related lockdowns.
So what can we do? We now know from numerous studies that investing in and accelerating gender equality is one of the key pathways to stronger economies and peaceful societies and that in turn societies with low gender equality usually have more instances of GBV and less economic stability and prosperity. If women and girls are supported in their education for example, they can not only make significant contributions to the workforce and the economy, but it is also more likely that their children have access to education and resources and thus are less likely to rely on public services or institutions. Financial resources and lives are saved when violence is prevented from occurring in the first place.
Author(s) -Julia Hollander
