KATHMANDU: The United Nations (UN) today said that violence perpetrated against women and girls has reached worrisome heights in all the continents.

One out of every three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused by an intimate partner during her lifetime, a statement issued here today by the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP), on the eve of International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, said.

Nepal is no exception to this grim occurrence as tens of thousands of women experience violence, 80 per cent of which is domestic violence, a 2008 report of the National Women Commission, stated.

Beatings by husbands, dowry-related murders and physical and psychological harassment by in-laws are frequently reported in Nepal. Women in Nepal are still stuck in the brutal cycle of gender violence, although 18 years have passed since Nepal ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1991.

“Violence against women and girls is a devastating reality in all cultures, countries and continents, causing damage, trauma and despair,” UNDP administrator Helen Clark, said.

Despite some progress that has been made in achieving gender equality worldwide, women represent 60 per cent of the world’s poorest, less than 16 per cent of

the world’s parliamentarians and two-thirds of the world’s illiterate, the report has shown.

“Be it armed conflicts or behind closed doors at home, women are still systematically subjected to violence,” it further states.

Nevertheless, there is a ray of hope that Nepali women have started fighting against deeply rooted gender violence, it adds.

As cited in the report, the roots of violence against women in Nepal lie in unequal power

relations between men and women.