15 Countries with Highest Rates of Domestic Violence in the World in 2018

We may believe that domestic violence is a thing of the past in the civilized world, but for these 15 countries with highest rates of domestic violence in the world in 2018, it’s very much alive.

Domestic violence affects people at all levels of economic status and it occurs across the world, in different cultures. We tend to think of domestic violence as violence against women primarily, but it is not so. A great number of men are victims too, and so are children. The fact we believe men are not so often victims of domestic violence is that they are less likely to report the abuse, due to shame or whatever other reasons. That affects any study you wish to conduct on domestic violence, as we don’t really know how many victims are there.

The numbers are still terrifying despite the fact that the society has evolved so much. This leads us to wonder whether we have evolved at all if we still think we have the right to physically attack someone if we don’t like something. While this is debatable, domestic violence world statistics aren’t. In some countries, violence is justified and even legal. It is estimated that over 600 million women live in countries where domestic violence is legal according to the United Nations. WHO states that 1 in 3 women worldwide has experienced some sort of violence, physical or sexual. There is no legislation against domestic violence in the countries, unfortunately, and this tells us how grave the situation is. Burkina Faso, Cameroon, and Yemen are just a few of the 15 biggest countries where domestic violence is legal. The seriousness of the problem was previously discussed in our list of 11 countries with the highest rates of domestic violence in the world.

Furthermore, although there is still not enough research on the issue, certain professions have been associated with domestic violence in particular, as you may see in 10 Professions with Highest Rate of Domestic Violence. The list includes jobs both belonging to abusers as well as victims.

On the other hand, it appears that North America is among countries with lowest domestic violence, as opposed to countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. In some cultures, women endure the oppression due to religious belief or lack of choices. Children and women are beaten and abused, but since in many countries there are no laws that would punish the abuser, the victims remain silent.

When we talk about domestic violence statistics by country, the real number of victims is elusive for all the reasons mentioned above, so it is difficult to rank the countries. We cannot possibly know how many men are abused as they tend to remain silent about their experiences. Not to mention that there are little to no reports at all for the year 2018. On the other hand, there are sufficient reports on domestic violence against women and children (young girls) for the previous years, so we turned to these reports when compiling our list.

Our list is based on reports of domestic violence against women and children by WHO and Unicef. According to WHO (domestic violence world statistics report was updated last year), African countries have the highest rates of domestic violence, as well as South-East Asia, the Americas, and the Eastern Mediterranean. The domestic violence statistics in the Middle East are quite shocking which is why we simply had to include those countries in our list. What is even more shocking are the female homicide rates by country, where Russia and South Africa are the “winners”.

These are the 15 countries with highest rates of domestic violence in the world in 2018.

15. Ghana

Ranked 15th on our list, Ghana is another African country where women are often abused by their partners or husbands.

14. Bangladesh

We are continuing our list of countries with highest rates of domestic violence in the world in 2018 with Bangladesh, which doesn’t fall much behind and has an almost equal number of victims of domestic violence. The Guardian published this sad report on domestic violence in Bangladesh in pictures.

13. Dominican Republic

Another Latin America country that ranked pretty high among countries with domestic violence issues. More on domestic violence in the Dominican Republic can be found here.

12. Colombia

Colombia ranks high among the countries where women were abused by their husbands or partners, especially young women. You can learn more about women fighting domestic violence here.

11. United Republic of Tanzania

Tanzania was previously on our list of countries where domestic violence is legal, so the fact that it managed to top 15 countries with high numbers of victims of such violence does not surprise us.

10. Haiti

Haiti ranked 10th on our list of countries with highest rates of domestic violence in the world in 2018. Young women, as well as middle-aged women, are often abused by their partners.

9. Rwanda

In Rwanda, there is almost an equal number of young girls and middle-aged women who reported being abused by their partners or husbands.

8. Uganda

There is a high number of victims of domestic violence in Uganda, similar to the other African countries included in the list.

7. Cameroon

Cameroon remains one of the countries where sadly, domestic violence is not so rare. But according to World Pulse, there is a lot of action initiated by the government to empower women in Cameroon.

6. Democratic Republic of Congo

The Democratic Republic of Congo ranks 6th on our list of countries with highest rates of domestic violence in the world in 2018. It has a serious problem when it comes to domestic violence. You can read more about the prevalence of domestic violence in The Democratic Republic of Congo here.

5. Liberia

Just like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia has a high number of victims of domestic violence. However, appears that Liberia has recently made some effort to reduce the rates of domestic violence, according to UN Women.

4. Zimbabwe

According to Unicef, Zimbabwe is one of the countries with highest rates of domestic violence against women by their partners or husbands.

3. Gabon

Ranking pretty high among countries with highest rates of domestic violence is Gabon. There is almost an equal number of young girls and women who were at some point victims of domestic violence.

2. Equatorial Guinea

Another country with a high number of young girls who experienced physical or sexual violence. According to the same report, the number of women aged 45-49 who have been victims of abuse is also high in this country.

1. Namibia

According to Unicef, Namibia is the country with the highest percentage of girls aged 15-19 who experienced some sort of domestic violence by a husband or partner. The number of middle-aged women who are abused in Namibia is not negligible, too. Hence, we ranked Namibia as the top country with highest rates of domestic violence in the world in 2018.

This wraps it up for our list of countries with highest rates of domestic violence in the world in 2018.