Violence against women both violates them and impairs their ability to enjoy their human rights and fundamental freedoms.  Violence against women is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position to men, and is the manifestation of historically unequal power relations between women and men. 

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> 

Violence against women can be perpetrated in private in domestic violence and rape, by societies and cultural practises such as female genital mutilation, honour killings, forced sterilisation and abortion, prenatal sex selection and forced prostitution and trafficking of women and children for the sex trade.   

Women and children also suffer disproportionately in conflict and war situations.