Factors contributing to a higher risk of violence, sexual harassment and stalking

The survey clearly finds that all women, regardless of their economic or social status, can experience violence, but some groups of women are at a higher risk. These risk factors include being younger, being a refugee or internally displaced, having a disability, being poor, being economically dependent or having children. Institutions and service providers should take risk factors into account, including by making an effort to remove barriers that prevent women from seeking support. 

 Younger women aged 18–29 are most likely to have been stalked since the age of 15, and 5% of them say they had a recent experience. Younger women tend to have experiences of nearly all forms of sexual harassment in higher proportions compared with their older counterparts (54% of 18–29 year olds have experienced sexual harassment compared to 42% of those aged 30 or older), in particular in relation to cyber-harassment, i.e., via mobile and Internet technology. 

 The prevalence of intimate partner physical and/or sexual violence in the 12 months prior to the survey is highest among those aged 18–29 (10%) and  those aged 40–49 (9%). 

 Since the age of 15, the prevalence of any physical and/or sexual violence is highest among those aged 40–49 (35% compared to 31% of all surveyed women). 

 Lifetime prevalence of any physical and/or sexual violence among women who consider themselves to have a disability (47%) and among those who say they are refugees or internally displaced (38%) is much higher than the average of all surveyed women (31%). 

 Women who have children at home are more likely to have experienced intimate partner physical and/or sexual violence than women who do not have children at home, both in their lifetime (24% versus 22% respectively) and in the 12 months prior to the survey (8% versus 5% respectively). 

 Women doing unpaid work in a family business are more likely to have experienced both intimate partner physical and/or sexual violence (33% versus 23% on average) and non-partner physical and/or sexual violence (38%) since the age of 15. The prevalence of intimate partner physical and sexual violence is also higher among those who are not working due to illness or disability (32%). Both of these groups of women are more likely to have experienced intimate partner physical and/or sexual violence in the 12 months prior to the survey as well as intimate partner psychological violence. 

 Women who face extreme income deprivation40 were more likely to experience any form of violence in the 12 months prior to the survey (42% compared to 27% of women who are not financially deprived). 

 Women who survived physical, sexual or psychological violence in childhood are more likely to experience it in adult life. Among those women who experienced childhood violence, nearly all of them (93%) say they have had some experience of violence, sexual harassment or stalking as adults, compared with 65% of women who did not experience some form of violence in childhood. 

https://www.osce.org/secretariat/413237?download=true