The health sector is increasingly engaged in responding to and mitigating violence against women as a public health problem that has serious health consequences for women and their children.
Thirty years since the landmark Beijing Platform for Action on Women provided a roadmap toward equality and empowerment for women, more than 160 countries have at least one national survey on prevalence of violence against women. This allows monitoring of progress on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5.2, to eliminate all forms of violence.
In 2016, the World Health Assembly endorsed the WHO Global Plan of Action to strengthen the health system, within a multisectoral response, in addressing interpersonal violence against women and girls and children. The plan emphasizes a public health approach, integration of violence prevention and response into essential health services, and strengthening linkages with multisectoral efforts on gender equality, human rights and sustainable development.
This plan aimed to support Member States to operationalize Resolution WHA67.15 (2014) , Strengthening the role of the health system in addressing violence, in particular against women and girls, and against children, in four areas:
- strengthening leadership and governance of the health sector through laws, policies and protocols;
- strengthening comprehensive service delivery and capacities of the health sector;
- fostering evidence-based prevention; and
- improving monitoring, surveillance and evidence to end violence against women.
A newly released Violence against Women in Health Policies Database tracks progress made by countries towards commitments made in this global plan. Data from 200 countries across 48 indicators shows increasing integration of the prevention of and response to violence against women and girls in national health strategies and policies. More countries are training health workers in survivor-centred clinical care for intimate partner violence and/or sexual violence and adopting standardized protocols, while access to and quality of quality care for survivors is improving.
For example, to respond to the Ukrainian refugees experiencing sexual violence during the conflict, WHO guidance and training materials have been translated into Polish. Capacity strengthening of health professionals has been institutionalized to serve the refugee and local populations through the national chamber of nurses and midwives and WHO training integrated into the curricula of four universities. In 2024, almost 500 health workers were trained, and a task force led by a Polish feminist NGO – Feminoteka is monitoring progress on coverage and quality of clinical management of rape and intimate partner violence services.
To date in 2025, WHO and the UN's Special Programme in Human Reproduction (HRP) have finalized and published several key resources that enhance the capacity of health systems to respond to violence in both emergency and non-emergency settings.
Caring for women subjected to violence: online facilitated training for health workers offers a virtual, interactive curriculum that equips health providers to deliver empathetic, first-line support to women experiencing violence, using the WHO-endorsed LIVES approach. Adapted from in-person trainings, it is designed for use in emergencies or low-resource settings where in-person training is not feasible, to help ensure continuity of care and survivor-centred response.
These training tools are essential to build a sustainable and integrated national health systems response that addresses violence against women as a public health issue
Meanwhile, the Clinical management of rape and intimate partner violence in emergencies: a training toolkit offers tools to strengthen capacities of health workers to deliver clinical care to survivors. The toolkit addresses the unique challenges of humanitarian contexts by offering flexible, modular training aligned with WHO guidelines and the minimum initial service package for sexual and reproductive health.
"These training tools are essential to build a sustainable and integrated national health systems response that addresses violence against women as a public health issue," says Avni Amin, Unit Head of Rights and Equality across the Life Course at WHO and HRP. "They help translate global commitments into real-world action by making frontline health services more survivor-centred and of higher quality, no matter the context."
Research that fuels impact in country
As highlighted in the Global Plan, research is key to informing evidence-driven programming. Preliminary results from a recently completed study showed promising results from a Strengthening Women's Agency in Pregnancy programme, an empowerment counselling intervention with pregnant Congolese women and girls attending antenatal care in a hospital in Nyarugusu refugee camp in Kigoma, Tanzania. The intervention showed high acceptability with 82% of women enrolled in the study returning for more than the minimum number of sessions. It also showed improved maternal mental health as a result of the intervention, with participants experiencing a 44% reduced likelihood in moderate-to-severe depression compared to the control group, 6 months after receiving the intervention.
By training over 10 000 health workers across 29 fragile and humanitarian settings, training packages operationalize WHO and HRP's commitment to building capacity in line with SDG 5.2 as well as WHO's commitment to ensuring universal health coverage. They ensure that care for survivors is embedded in both routine and emergency health responses, and exemplify how WHO and HRP translate global policy commitments into practice at the country level, guided by strong research.
