The prevalence rate of Sexual Violence worldwide

Background: The purpose of the present study is to showcase the image of Sexual Violence (SV) temporal tends through exploring differences in its prevalence rates during 1990-2017 across 195 countries and territories.

Methods: The SV prevalence rates were derived from the Gobal Burden of Disease (GBD) database during 1990 to 2017, worldwide. Fast, the Latent Growth Model (LGM) was employed for assessing the change in SV prevalence fate over time in Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America, Australia & Oceania, for men and women separately. Then, the change mn SV prevalence rate over ome was determined within countries with high and low Human Development index (HDI). Finally, the Latent Growth Mocure Models (LGMM) were applied for dentifying Casses where countries within each class have similar trend of SV prevalence tate over time.

Results: The SV prevalence was higher among women than men and decreased in both genders over time across the world. The deckning trend in SV prevalence against men is visible in both countris with high and low HO!, but SV prevalence against women in countries with low HDI shows an increase The findings of LGMM identified six Classes of SV prevalence trajectories. LGMM allocated Bermuda wto the dass wah the highest decrease in SV prevalence against men, and Equatorial Guinea and Luxembourg into the dass wath the highest mncrease. Other countries had very slow declining trends. In terms of SV prevalence against women, LGMM allocated Chana, North Korea, and Tarwan into the class with the most increase among the countes in the world. Bermuda, Guyana, Mesaco, Nigena, and Saint Lucia were placed into the dass which witnessed the largest dedine anc Angola, Congo, and Equatonal Guinea were ranked next. The trend in other countries was mostly decreasing.

Conclusion: Given the high economic and social burden that SV has on victims and societies, the rate of SV in most countries does not seem to have dropped remarkably and requires special attention by relevant policy makers. The SV prevalence rate is highly heterogeneous among world countries which may be due to the definitions and tools used, and more importantly, the culture norms.