Sexual violence against women: a challenge

Sexual abuse is a serious global public health issue with wide-ranging consequences for the physical, emotional and socioeconomic wellbeing of the survivor [1]. Worldwide, up to 35% of women are estimated to have suffered some form of physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime, with 20% reporting childhood abuse [2]. In 2012, the United Nations called for a global concerted effort to improve reporting on sexual abuse to facilitate strategies to reduce all forms of violence against women and girls [3]. Our aims were to describe the patterns of sexual abuse in an ethnically diverse population in Sri Lanka. In addition, we sought to identify the relationship between the assailant and survivor. These were according to categorised guidelines of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and the categorisation of sexual abuse in the Sri Lanka Penal Code [4,5].