Violence against Women: An Unending Social Scourge

Violence against women is globally a stark reality. Women are affected in so many ways because of the violence perpetrated primarily by men and also, in many cases, by the women themselves. Violence against women takes place in each section of the population irrespective of their class, religion, ethnicity or any other social identity. Some legislation has been enacted in almost every country to deal with this violence committed against women. Although perpetrators of violence are sometimes punished based on the law of a particular country, it has not decreased substantially. Instead, it has taken multiple forms in different countries. This editorial aims to depict the manifold types of violence frequently occurring in different parts of the world. It investigates the significant reasons that are responsible for committing violence against women and also tries to find out the consequences of this violence at the individual, familial, and societal levels. This editorial piece is based on secondary data extracted from relevant literature like journal articles, books, research reports, periodicals, working papers, etc. Relevant literature has been detected and downloaded using internet search engines such as Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic Search, JSTOR, etc. Some words like violence against women, domestic violence, family violence, and couple conflicts have been used to identify relevant literature. Papers or research reports published between 2000 and 2024 have only been considered for writing this editorial. Findings show that patriarchal norms that still dominate one way or the other in many of the countries across the globe are, to a great extent, responsible for violence against women.