Estimates of sexual violence are surveys of victims of sexual violence crime that have been undertaken to estimate the prevalence of sexual violence. The prevalence of sexual violence differs from the reported sexual violence statistics according to the law enforcement agencies due to the dark figure of crime and under-reporting of crime. The surveys use a common methodology to aid comparability.

Overview The United Nations has conducted extensive surveys to determine the level of sexual violence in different societies. According to these studies, the percentage of women reporting having been a victim of sexual assault ranges from less than 2% in places such as La Paz, Bolivia (1.4%), Gaborone, Botswana (0.8%), Beijing, China (1.6%), and Manila, Philippines (0.3%), to 5% or more in Istanbul, Turkey (6.0%), Buenos Aires, Argentina (5.8%), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (8.0%), and Bogotá, Colombia (5.0%).The international crime victim survey in countries in transition: national reports. Rome, United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, 1998.Victims of crime in the developing world. Rome, United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, 1998

Rape The 1998 National Violence Against Women Survey, based on a sample size of 8,000, estimated the incidence of rape to be 1 in 6 for women and 1 in 33 for men, based on reports of attempted or completed rapes over the course of her or his lifetime.

No distinction has been made in these figures between rape by strangers and that by intimate partners. Surveys that fail to make this distinction or those that only examine rape by strangers usually underestimate substantially the prevalence of sexual violence.Jewkes R, Abrahams N. The epidemiology of rape and sexual coercion in South Africa: an overview. Social Science and Medicine (in press).

In 2011, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that "nearly 20% of all women" in the United States suffered attempted rape or rape sometime in their lives. More than a third of the victims were raped before the age of 18.

Apart from crime surveys, there have been a small number of surveys, with representative samples, that have asked women about sexual violence. For instance, in a national survey conducted in the United States, 14.8% of women over 17 years of age reported having been raped in their lifetime (with an additional 2.8% having experienced attempted rape) and 0.3% of the sample reported having been raped in the previous year.Tjaden P, Thoennes N. Full report of the prevalence, incidence and consequences of violence against women: findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey. Washington, DC, National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, United States Department of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2000 (NCJ 183781). A survey of a representative sample of women aged 18–49 years in three provinces of South Africa found that in the previous year 1.3% of women had been forced, physically or by means of verbal threats, to have non-consensual sex. In a survey of a representative sample of the general population over 15 years of age in the Czech Republic, 11.6% of women reported forced sexual contact in their lifetime, 3.4% reporting that this had occurred more than once. The most common form of contact was forced vaginal intercourse.

Sexual violence by intimate partners

Forced sexual initiation A growing number of studies, particularly from sub-Saharan Africa, indicate that the first sexual experience of girls is sometimes unwanted and forced. In a case control study, for example, of 191 adolescent girls (mean age 16.3 years) attending an antenatal clinic in Cape Town, South Africa, and 353 non pregnant adolescents matched for age and neighborhood or school, 31.9% of the study cases and 18.1% of the controls reported that force was used during their sexual initiation. When asked about the consequences of refusing sex, 77.9% of the study cases and 72.1% of the controls said that they feared being beaten if they refused to have sex.

Forced sexual initiation and coercion during adolescence have been reported in many studies of young women and men. Where studies have included both men and women in the sample, the prevalence of reported rape or sexual coercion has been higher among the women than the men.Rwenge M. "Sexual risk behaviours among young people in Bamenda, Cameroon. International Family Planning Perspectives, 2000; 118–123.Halco´n L, Beuhring T, Blum R. A portrait of adolescent health in the Caribbean, 2000. Minneapolis, MN, University of Minnesota and Pan American Health Organization, 2000. For example, nearly half of the sexually active adolescent women in a multi-country study in the Caribbean reported that their first sexual intercourse was forced, compared with one-third of the adolescent men.Halco´n L, Beuhring T, Blum R. A portrait of adolescent health in the Caribbean, 2000. Minneapolis, MN, University of Minnesota and Pan American Health Organization, 2000. In Lima, Peru, the percentage of young women reporting forced sexual initiation was almost four times that reported by the young men (40% against 11%, respectively).

There are not many studies of forced sexual initiation in the United States, and estimates from the studies that do exist vary widely. One study of 5,663 heterosexual women in the United States found that 12.5% had experienced forced sexual initiation. Of the women who were 15 years old or younger when they had their first sexual experience, 22% reported that those initiations were forced. In the 1992 US National Health and Social Life Survey of over 3,400 adults, more than 4% of women reported coerced sexual initiation.

In a study of over 24,000 women, the World Health Organization found the following rates of women reporting forced sexual initiation: 30% in a Bangladesh province, 24% in a Bangladesh city, 24% in a Peru province, 17% in an Ethiopia province, 17% in a United Republic of Tanzania province, 14% in a United Republic of Tanzania city, 8% in Samoa, 7% in a Peru city, 6% in a Namibia city, 5% in a Brazil province, 4% in a Thailand city, 3% in a Brazil city, 0.7% in a Serbia and Montenegro city, and 0.4% in a Japan city. In all of these sites except Ethiopia, the younger the woman was at the time of her first sexual experience, the more likely it was that that experience was forced sexual initiation.

Gang rape

Gang rape, or mass rape, occurs when a group of people participate in the rape of a single victim. Rape involving at least two or more perpetrators is widely reported to occur in many parts of the world.

Sexual trafficking

Each year hundreds of thousands of women and girls throughout the world are bought and sold into prostitution or sexual slavery.Migration Information Programme. Trafficking and prostitution: the growing exploitation of migrant women from central and eastern Europe. Geneva, International Organization for Migration, 1995.Chauzy JP. Kyrgyz Republic: trafficking. Geneva, International Organization for Migration, 20 January 2001 (Press briefing notes).Dinan K. Owed justice: Thai women trafficked into debt bondage in Japan. New York, NY, Human Rights Watch, 2000.Richard AO. International trafficking in women to the United States: a contemporary manifestation of slavery and organized crime. Washington, DC, Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1999.Brown L. Sex slaves: the trafficking of women in Asia. London, Virago Press, 2001. Internationally, the most common destinations for victims of human trafficking are Thailand, Japan, Israel, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Turkey and the United States, according to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Research in Kyrgyzstan has estimated that around 4,000 people were trafficked from the country in 1999, with the principal destinations being China, Germany, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. Of those trafficked, 62% reported being forced to work without pay, while over 50% reported being physically abused or tortured by their employers.Chauzy JP. Kyrgyzstan Republic: trafficking. Geneva, International Organization for Migration, 20 January 2001 (Press briefing notes).

A World Organization against Torture (OMCT) report suggested that more than 200,000 Bangladeshi women had been trafficked between 1990 and 1997.Benninger-Budel C et al. Violence against women: a report. Geneva, World Organization Against Torture, 1999. Over 200,000 Nepali girls have been trafficked to red light areas of India, and trafficking of Thai women to Japan has also been reported. Trafficking of women also takes place internally within some countries, often from rural areas to cities.

In recent years, the problem of human trafficking has gotten very serious in Europe, where women from Eastern Europe, as well as from Asia, Africa and Latin America are trafficked to Western Europe. In Netherlands, it is estimated that there are from 1,000 to 7,000 trafficking victims a year. Most police investigations relate to legal sex businesses, with all sectors of prostitution being well represented, but with window brothels being particularly overrepresented. In 2008, there were 809 registered trafficking victims, 763 were women and at least 60 percent of them were forced to work in the sex industry. All victims from Hungary were female and were forced into prostitution. Out of all Amsterdam's 8,000 to 11,000 prostitutes, more than 75% are from Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia, according to a former prostitute who produced a report about the sex trade in Amsterdam, in 2008.Timesonline.co.uk An article in Le Monde in 1997 found that 80% of prostitutes in the Netherlands were foreigners and 70% had no immigration papers. In 2020, investigative journalists from Argos and Lost in Europe, found that the Dutch government had known for over five years that Vietnamese children go missing from protected shelters in The Netherlands, sparking fears of trafficking. In 2015, Argos stated, four Vietnamese girls went missing from a shelter, carrying brown suitcases of the same brand, "a lot of cash and phones without sim cards". Two of the minors carried "sexy lingerie" in their suitcases.

In Germany, the trafficking of women from Eastern Europe is often organized by people from that same region. The German Federal Police Office (BKA) reported in 2006 a total of 357 completed investigations of human trafficking, with 775 victims. Thirty-five percent of the suspects were Germans born in Germany and 8% were German citizens born outside of Germany.Reports on human trafficking, by the BKA.

North America is also an important destination for international trafficking. A study undertaken under the auspices of the United States Central Intelligence Agency estimated that 45,000 to 50,000 women and children are trafficked annually to the United States.Richard AO. International trafficking in women to the United States: a contemporary manifestation of slavery and organized crime. Washington, DC, Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1999. Over 150 cases of trafficking were prosecuted between 1996 and 1999 by the United States Department of Justice. In 2004, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) estimated that 600-800 persons are trafficked into Canada annually and that additional 1,500–2,200 persons are trafficked through Canada into the United States.Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery - Canada In Canada, foreign trafficking for prostitution is estimated to be worth $400 million annually.Women & The Economy - Globalization & Migration

Sexual violence against sex workers