Prevalence of intimate partner violence against women in the Arab World: a systematic review

This article reviews intimate partner violence (IPV) in the 22 countries of the Arab League, where many women face existing barriers to social, political, and economic equality. IPV is a gender-based human rights issue that significantly affects women and girls. Through in-depth analyses of sources published between 2000-2016 such as peer-reviewed articles, national population-based survey reports, key-word searches of Medline, the Social Sciences Citation Index, and UN databases, the authors conclude that IPV in the Arab League amounts to a public health and human rights problem. These women and girls sustain substantial levels of physical, sexual, and emotional/psychological trauma as a result of IPV. The authors qualify their research by noting the risk of bias and accounting for it with a structured checklist, as well as by noting that evidence can often be fragmented and thus in need of greater comparable, high-quality research in the field of IPV.