According to the UNCHR, Gender-Based violence is defined as "any act that is perpetrated against a person's will and is based on gender norms and unequal power relationships". This can include domestic violence, intimate partner violence, sexual assault, teen-dating violence, stalking, and trafficking.
Violence against women – particularly intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual violence – is a major public health and gender equality problem and a violation of women's human rights.
Estimates published by WHO in 2023 indicate that globally about 1 in 3 (31.6%) of women worldwide (840 million women and girls) have been subjected to either physical and/or sexual intimate partner or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.
Worldwide, a quarter (25.8%) of women aged 15-49 years and 24.7% aged 15 years and older who have been in a relationship have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence from any current or former husband or male intimate partner at least once in their lives.
Adolescent girls are at particularly high risk of violence, with more than one in five ever-married or -partnered girls aged 15–19 having already experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner.
According to World Health Organization: Violence Against Women
The gender binary is the human-made idea that that there are only two genders, man and woman, to match the two "biological sexes," male and female. People are divided and restricted to perform gender roles that are opposite from each other.
The gender binary affects almost every aspect of our society. It dictates the choices we make, our interests, how we act, and molds us to the conventional "normal". The gender binary is not a harmless social construct. It establishes an imbalance of power between men and women, which creates the basis of our patriarchal society and the conditions for gender-based violence to happen.
The harmful effects of the gender binary are undoubtedly reflected in the violence that occurs in male and female dominated fields. Male-dominated professions, associated with dominance and authority, and female-dominated professions, associated with subservience and subordination, are products of the gender binary. The purpose of this website is to shed light on how the history of abuse and violence in each of these professions encourages and reinforces gender-based violence.
This site was created by interns at KAN-WIN, a nonprofit organization in the Chicagoland area working to eradicate gender based violence through comprehensive, survivor-centered services, education, and outreach to Asian American communities and beyond.
KAN-WIN runs YPAL (Youth Peer Advocate Leadership) Program every summer. Our 2026 summer cohort was trained on gender-based violence and what prevention/solutions look like, using a peer-to-peer education model. After completing the training, we became interns at KAN-WIN and were tasked to create a project that applies what we learned in YPAL to help make a difference in helping stop gender based violence. To learn more about KAN-WIN, visit us at kanwin.org
Authors: Kaya, Penny, Chloe, Nomin