Protecting women and girls from violence and harmful practices is a moral and human rights imperative. Yet, violence against women and girls is one of the most prevalent human rights violations in the world.

The issue of gender-based violence reaches every corner of the world, including here in Mongolia. The numbers of women and girls affected by violence are staggering. Globally, it is estimated that one in every three woman has gone through some form of violence in her lifetime by her intimate partner. One in five women is estimated to have been sexually abused as a child at the global level.

Gender-based violence undermines the health, dignity, security and autonomy of its victims, yet cultural impunity is prevalent in society. Victims of violence can suffer from sexual and reproductive health consequences, including forced and unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions, traumatic fistula, sexually transmitted infections including HIV, and even death.

“Gender-based violence is not only a violation of individual women’s and girls’ rights. The impunity enjoyed by perpetrators, and the fear generated by their actions, has an effect on all women and girls,” explains Naomi Kitahara, UNFPA Representative in Mongolia. 

In Mongolia, UNFPA’s One-Stop-Service-Centres offer psychosocial assistance, legal counselling, medical treatment and rape kits, and police protection to survivors, and promote the right of all women and girls to live free of violence and abuse. UNFPA also supports the country’s effort to put in place mechanisms to prevent violence against women and girls.

“We, at UNFPA, renew our commitment to do everything in our power to put an end to violence against women and girls in Mongolia, and violence against women and girls is totally unacceptable. We call on all of our partners to join us in committing to make violence against women and girls a thing of the past,” says Kitahara.

UNFPA is one of the UN's lead agencies working to further gender equality and women’s empowerment, and to address the physical and emotional consequences of gender-based violence.

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UNFPA is working with partners and allies to end violence against women and girls in Mongolia. UNFPA chairs the UN Gender Theme Groups and leads in the coordination of responses to gender-based violence and other harmful practice that injures women and girls. For more info on our work and programmes, visit: www.mongolia.unfpa.org