Violence against women, and the reluctance of authorities to deal with it, present a serious challenge to Indian society, law enforcement, and judicial affairs. Numerous incidents involving group rapes and rape and murder—such as the Nirbhaya case in New Delhi in 2012—have captured national and international attention. While domestic violence and public intimidation are familiar to women across India, statistics remain scarce and unreliable.

In the wake of a decade-long civil war that claimed more than 13,000 lives, Nepal’s uneasy peace has been plagued by uncertainties, tied to the volatile political environment, the gridlocks over the drafting of the new constitution, and the reported proliferation of criminal activities. This rapid succession of changes has raised new questions about the overall security situation in the country.

By Robert Muggah, co-published with Oxfam.

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A recent survey on perceptions of security in Kenya found that the highest area of concern among household respondents was safety during electioneering periods. Specifically, 48.4 per cent felt most unsafe during political campaigns: an understandable anxiety, given Kenya’s recent political history and its recurrent electoral violence.

Almost one-half of Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence, including forced sexual initiation. Much of the violence is barely acknowledged, let alone investigated and prosecuted. Extreme and even fatal acts of violence—targeting poor women in particular—are common enough to be considered unremarkable, a non-issue for the media, the political class, the police, and by extension, the Kenyan state.

With the majority of the world’s population now living in cities, and with levels of violence very often higher in urban than rural areas, urban armed violence has become increasingly critical to securing human security and safety.

Urban Armed Violence, a Research Note by the Small Arms Survey and the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development, surveys the state of research into urban armed violence, and explores some of the main debates on this subject.

Violent deaths make up a substantial proportion of global mortality and morbidity: up to 600,000 occur annually, accounting for around one per cent of global deaths. Among young adult males, deaths from intentional interpersonal violence—homicides—account for over ten per cent of all deaths.

Peace without Security: Violence against Women and Girls in Liberia analyses violence against women and girls (VAWG) in Liberia. First, it examines the extent to which women and girls in Liberia are victims of crimes and violence in general. It then focuses specifically on the patterns and characteristics of sexual and domestic violence. These latter forms of abuse, categorized as genderbased violence (GBV)3 because the victims are targeted on the basis of their gender, mainly affect females.

Karamoja, in the north-east of Uganda and one of the country’s least developed regions, has been plagued by decades-long inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic violence. The availability and use of small arms in the region has exacerbated the violence, and a climate of insecurity has hindered development. Various peace and security initiatives in the region aim to reduce the violence and improve security.

On average, armed violence kills 526,000 people each year.