The United Nations urged the governments to put an end to the violence against women and girls underlining that ‘only then will we have a more just, peaceful and equitable world’.

United Nations / NationalTurk – The call is included in a message issued by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as part of the celebration on Thursday of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, established by the Un General Assembly in 1999.

The right of women and girls to live without violence is inalienable and fundamental as established in the international humanitarian legislation and the human rights regulations, the message states.

Before establishing the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the General Assembly passed a Declaration on the same issue in 1993.

As part of Thursday´s celebration, a special ceremony will took place on Wednesday with the presence of UN Women Executive Director Michelle Bachelet, who also released a message in commemoration of this important date.

The female leader denounced ‘the conspiratorial silence with regards to the violation of human rights of women’ affirming that gender violence is a threat to democracy, peace and stability.

Violence against Women : Facts and numbers

Violence against women and girls is a problem of pandemic proportions. Based on country data available , up to 70 per cent of women experience physical or sexual violence from men in their lifetime – the majority by husbands, intimate partners or someone they know.

Among women aged between 15 and 44, acts of violence cause more death and disability than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war combined. Perhaps the most pervasive human rights violation that we know today, violence against women devastates lives, fractures communities, and stalls development. It takes many forms and occurs in many places – domestic violence in the home, sexual abuse of girls in schools, sexual harassment at work, rape by husbands or strangers, in refugee camps or as a tactic of war.