“A decade later, we continue to see the same shocking levels of violence,” says the Director of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.

Nearly one in three women in the European Union has experienced physical violence, threats, or sexual violence since the age of 15. “A decade later, we continue to see the same shocking levels of violence.”

This represents approximately 50 million women. These are the findings of the latest EU survey on gender-based violence, based on interviews with more than 114,000 women. What makes these figures especially alarming is not only their scale but also their persistence, according to The Conversation. 10 years earlier, the first EU-wide survey had already documented the same pattern.

A Decade of Little Change

As the Director of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) stated: “A decade later, we continue to see the same shocking levels of violence.”

In a recent article published in Nature Communications, Enrique Gracia, Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Valencia, examined whether Target 5.2 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—which aims to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls by 2030—is a realistic objective.

His conclusion is sobering: No—not by 2030, and not at the current pace.

A Growing Public Health Emergency

The latest findings on violence against women are deeply concerning. According to Gracia, the EU statistics closely mirror global data. The World Health Organization (WHO) describes violence against women as a public health problem of pandemic proportions.

Its latest estimates, published in 2025, indicate that 30.4% of women worldwide—approximately 840 million women—have experienced physical or sexual violence during their lifetime.

These figures have remained largely unchanged for more than two decades. The WHO characterizes recent reductions as minimal, far too slow, and entirely insufficient. Even these statistics may underestimate the true extent of the problem, as many women do not disclose experiences of violence during surveys. Moreover, several forms of abuse—including psychological violence, coercive control, economic abuse, and online harassment—are not adequately captured in general statistics.

The “Nordic Paradox”

Perhaps the most surprising finding concerns where the highest levels of violence are reported.

According to the 2024 EU survey, lifetime prevalence reached:

• 57% in Finland
• 52% in Sweden
• 47% in Denmark

These figures are significantly higher than the EU average of 30.7%.

These countries consistently rank among the world’s most developed nations and perform exceptionally well in global gender equality rankings.

This phenomenon, commonly known as the “Nordic Paradox,” challenges a widely held assumption: that economic development and gender equality alone will automatically lead to lower levels of violence.

According to Gracia, while these achievements are essential, they are clearly not sufficient on their own to prevent violence against women.

Young Women Face Greater Risks

Across the European Union, women aged 18 to 29 report higher levels of violence than the overall average.

This trend was already evident a decade ago and has shown no meaningful improvement.

Today’s younger generations have grown up in an environment where public discussions about gender equality and awareness campaigns are more visible than ever before.

If current prevention measures were truly effective, we would expect to see a significant decline.

The evidence, however, does not support that expectation.

At the same time, violence itself is evolving.

Digital technologies have created new avenues for abuse, including:

• Online stalking
• Social media threats
• Sexual extortion
• Non-consensual sharing of intimate images
• AI-generated sexually explicit deepfakes

Although these forms of abuse may not always involve direct physical violence, they make harassment easier to perpetrate, more difficult to escape, and faster to spread.

The Knowledge Exists—The Response Does Not Match the Scale

The reality of violence against women remains deeply alarming.

However, Gracia argues that being realistic should not lead to resignation.

Instead, the persistent scale of the problem demands a far more ambitious response.

The data do not suggest that the UN’s goal of eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls by 2030 has failed, nor that it is impossible.

Rather, they reveal a vast gap between the ambition of the goal and the scale, intensity, and consistency of current efforts to achieve it.

Importantly, the necessary tools already exist.

The WHO’s RESPECT Women Framework

Research conducted over the past decade has identified prevention strategies that have proven effective in reducing violence.

The WHO’s RESPECT Women framework, recently updated following global systematic reviews, organizes this evidence into seven interconnected strategies.

These include:

• Empowering women and girls.
• Transforming harmful gender norms.
• Strengthening services for survivors.
• Reducing poverty and economic inequality.
• Improving education and life skills.
• Creating safe environments.
• Strengthening laws, policies, and institutional responses.

The framework evaluates scientific evidence separately for high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries, highlighting the unequal development of prevention research across different settings.

However, no single strategy is sufficient.

Effective prevention requires coordinated action at the individual, community, and societal levels.

According to the RESPECT framework, the ultimate measure of success is whether these efforts produce a measurable reduction in violence across the population.

By that standard, current efforts remain clearly insufficient.

The challenge is not the absence of effective solutions.

The real problem is that proven interventions are not implemented at the necessary scale or sustained over the long term.

Awareness campaigns are launched but often discontinued.

Laws are passed but remain underfunded or inadequately enforced.

The greatest obstacle is not a lack of knowledge.

It is the persistent gap between commitments and action, and between available resources, political will, and the accountability required to ensure meaningful implementation.

A Crisis of Pandemic Proportions

The 2030 deadline may already be unrealistic, but the goal itself should not be abandoned, Gracia argues.

A problem affecting hundreds of millions of women cannot be treated as a secondary policy issue.

When the world faces other major public health emergencies, it mobilizes scientific expertise, funding, and international cooperation.

Violence against women deserves the same level of ambition: long-term investment, stronger scientific evidence, and meaningful public accountability.

The Nordic Paradox demonstrates that violence against women will not disappear automatically as societies become wealthier or achieve greater gender equality.

What is needed are deliberate, sustained, and measurable actions, supported by political commitment and accountability that reflect the scale of the crisis.

The promise to eliminate violence against women must be transformed from an aspiration into a reality.