The Daily Mail is reporting that the study, released by the World Health Organization (WHO), found that intimate partner violence is the most common type of assault on women today, affecting 30 percent of the world's women.

Overall, researchers say 35 percent of women alive in the world today can expect to be either physically or sexually abused by an intimate partner or non-partner in the course of their lifetime.

"These findings send a powerful message that violence against women is a global health problem of epidemic proportions," said the WHO's Dr Margaret Chan.

"We also see that the world's health systems can and must do more for women who experience violence."

Aside from the impact of the violence itself, this kind of abuse causes a myriad of other health problems in women ranging from depression to alcohol abuse, sexually transmitted diseases and abortion.

The study also reports that women who experience partner violence have a 16 per cent greater chance of giving birth to a low-weight baby.

"The report findings show violence greatly increases women's vulnerability to a range of short and long-term health problems," said Dr Claudia Garcia-Moreno, of the WHO. "It highlights the need for the health sector to take violence against women more seriously."

In the U.S. almost one-third of all female homicide victims were killed by an intimate partner, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

An estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner every year in the U.S. with women between the ages of 20 and 24 considered to be at the highest risk for this kind of assault.

Intimate partner abuse results in more than 18.5 million mental health care visits a year by women in the U.S. and exceeds $5.8 billion dollars a year in medical costs.

In other countries, particularly those in which females are regarded as second-class citizens, violence against women comes in many forms and is often based upon cultural and historical practices.

For instance, in Africa and the Middle East, female genital mutilation is a common form of violence against women affecting anywhere from 100 to 140 million women in the world.

UN Women reports that over 60 million girls worldwide are child brides, married before the age of 18, primarily in South Asia (31.3 million) and sub-Saharan Africa (14.1 million). "Women who marry early are more likely to be beaten or threatened, and more likely to believe that a husband might sometimes be justified in beating his wife," the UN reports. http://www.endvawnow.org/en/articles/299-fast-facts-statistics-on-violence-against-women-and-girls-.html

Nearly 80 percent of the 800,000 people trafficked across national borders every year are women, with the majority being trafficked for sexual exploitation.

In some Middle Eastern countries, and even in some communities of immigrants from these countries who live in Europe and the United States, honor killings take place in which women are killed by male relatives to restore the family's "honor". In these cultures, a woman can be killed for talking to a male who is not a relative, for having sex outside marriage, for being raped,  for refusing to submit to an arrangement marriage, for disrespecting her husband or seeking a divorce.

Despite these staggering numbers, intimate partner violence against women remains one of the most chronically underreported crimes. Even in the U.S., only a quarter of all physical assaults, a fifth of all rapes and half of all stalkings perpetuated against females by their partners is ever reported to the police - which means these numbers are, in reality, much higher.

As Blessed John Paul II said with such passion in his Letter to Women: "The time has come to condemn vigorously the types of sexual violence which frequently have women for their object and to pass laws which effectively defend them from such violence." http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_29061995_women_en.html

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