Domestic violence is the most common form of gender-based violence. In every country where reliable, large-scale studies on gender violence are available, upwards from 20 per cent of women have been abused by the men they live with.

More recent studies based on research in 35 diverse countries confirm the pervasive pattern of abuse by male partners: one fourth to more than one half of women reported being physically abused by a present or former partner. Significantly, an even larger percentage reported suffering ongoing emotional and psychological abuse, a form of violence that many battered women view as worse than physical abuse.

Often research into this issue is hampered because women are taught to accept physical and emotional mistreatment as a "normal" part of marital relations. Women may therefore understate the level of physical and psychological violence in their intimate relationships.

The other decisive factor in women’s reluctance to come forward is the imbalance in the power relations between men and women. Besides the social stigma, women fear incriminating family members, particularly husbands, whom they depend on not only financially but also emotionally. Women who do decide to leave abusive relationships have minimal safety nets and limited opportunities for rebuilding their lives.

A Cambodian mother told this to her abused daughter who had run away from her husband: "Please go back home. Don't be afraid of your husband, he won’t beat you until you are dead. At most, he will just hit you until you are unconscious. If he beats you to death I will bury your bones." (Panos. 1998. The Intimate Enemy: Gender Violence and Reproductive Health.)

Abused women face a host of physical injuries that include chronic complaints such as headaches, abdominal pains, muscle aches, sleeping and eating disorders. Battered women are more likely to experience persistent miscarriages and recurrent vaginal infections. Fearful of using birth control, they are more likely to experience unwanted pregnancies and resort to illegal, unsafe abortions.

Pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to gender-based violence. Some husbands become more violent during the wife’s pregnancy, even kicking or hitting their wives in the belly. These women run twice the risk of miscarriage and four times the risk of having a low-birth weight baby. Making matters worse is the fact that a high percentage of women in developing countries have poor health to begin with, due to mal-nutrition, inadequate health care, and the burdens of the gender division of labour.