29 March 2013: In the latest “Our Perspective” piece, Suki Beavers and Benjamin Kumpf, UN Development Programme (UNDP) Bureau for Development Policy’s Gender Team, describe how violence against women can hurt business and development as well as impact women’s education, health and participation in public life.

While stressing the need to address violence against women and girls as a human rights issue, Beavers and Kumpf also highlight the economic and development problems that result from such violence. They note costs such as loss of salaries and productivity, costs for legal services and prosecuting perpetrators and costs for health care. They cite several studies that quantify such costs, including: over two billion per year in Canada for counseling, training, police and criminal justice system costs as a result of violence against women; US$1.56 billion, or more than two percent of Chile’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), in lost salary from domestic violence; and US$5.8 billion annually as a result of violence against women in the US.

Beavers and Kumpf stress that preventing violence against women and girls will increase productivity and reduce state expenditures. They conclude that “gender-based violence remains invisible in strategies to boost economic growth” and recommend including this issue in the international development agenda. [Publication: Our Perspective]