Measuring the economic costs of violence against women and girls

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a global problem. Worldwide, it is estimated that one woman in three will experience some form of VAWG during their lifetime.

Aside from the physical and mental toll of violence, VAWG disrupts peace and stability within families, friends and communities. There is also often-unseen economic cost to societies and countries that spirals out from instances of violence against a woman or child.

This Facilitator's Guide provides a tool to measure the financial and economic impact of VAWG throughout the Commonwealth and beyond.

Jump to: Commonwealth commitments Economic costs Methodology Case studies: Lesotho and Seychelles

What is the Facilitators Guide?

The Facilitator’s Guide is a step-by-step guide on the Economic Costs of VAWG (EconVAWG) analytical framework and its application to assess the economic costs of violence against women and girls (VAWG).

The Guide is a tool for assessing and monitoring progress in addressing VAWG and is intended for use by researchers, practitioners, policy makers and civil society organisations.

The Guide is illustrated with real life examples from Seychelles and Lesotho, and provides, where applicable, appropriate tools for undertaking activities that will enable the costing of VAWG.

Please Note: The Facilitators Guide is to be used in conjunction with additional documents that are provided in the annexes of the report and in the Methodology section below. These will provide context and guidance to achieve robust results.

Download the Facilitator's Guide (PDF)

The Commonwealth has a strong foundation on commitments, conventions, and treaties on which to act towards greater gender equality, articulated in the 2013 Charter of the Commonwealth, which recognises that gender equality and women’s empowerment are essential components of human development and basic human rights.

At the 2015 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Malta, leaders reaffirmed their conviction that gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls should be mainstreamed into development and reaffirmed their commitment to prioritising the issue in line with the aspirations of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs) within the work of the Commonwealth Secretariat. These commitments were also reaffirmed in 2018 by the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), whereby Heads called for the Commonwealth to ratify and implement the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Economic costs

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is understood as a human rights violation that can have serious implications for the health and well-being of women and their families. However, the impact of VAWG goes beyond the individual and affects communities, businesses and overall economies. Despite this understanding of VAWG there are limited studies available that closely examine the relationship between economics and VAWG. In addition, measuring the cost of VAWG can help change the social discourse towards an understanding that VAWG is not socially acceptable and is a public welfare issue. Therefore, by understanding the costs of VAWG policy, makers can better provide solutions that help reduce violence.

Direct costs: cost of medical treatment for various types of physical and mental abuses, including medical bills for physical wounds; psycho-social cure bills; law/police; loss of income due to absence in work.
Indirect costs: measures the reduction of gross domestic product (GDP) through the linkages between income generation processes and reduction in effective demand due to loss of female work days. Loss of female work days translates into reduced income and hence loss of private consumption which leads to a decline in both effective demand and subsequently GDP through their inter-dependence in the circular flow of income generation.
Induced costs: denote further reduction (i.e. second round effects) in GDP due to loss of demand for the products (unaffected in the first round) which are inter-dependent with the products affected indirectly.

Methodology

The EconVAWG Framework is made up of five integrated steps outlined in the EconVAWG Framework box below. Each step has several actions each of which must be completed in order to provide the necessary data for the methodology, analysis and validation.

The guide also includes guidance and customisable guidelines, tools and templates, relevant to the task of data collection, estimation of economic costs of VAWG and post-assessment phase.

The EconVAWG Framework is made up of five integrated steps briefly outlined below. They must be followed sequentially. Each step has several actions each of which must be completed in order to provide the necessary data for the methodology, analysis and validation. Due to the paucity of disaggregated data in Small States, the complete roll out of the Framework can take up to two years.

The time frame of two years should also be treated as the maximum amount of time within which the exercise should be completed. It must be completed by a multidisciplinary team to best understand the collection and collation of data. Prolonging the exercise to beyond two years can impact seriously on the robustness of the data analysis.

Step 1: (4 – 6 Weeks Completion Time)

i. Establishment of Committees,

ii. Preparation of a stakeholder register,

iii. Desk review and initial assessment of VAWG in-country.

iv. Training in the Commonwealth EconVAWG; and

v. Initial stakeholder interviews.

Step 2

i. Collection and review of existing data VAWG;

ii. Collection of household survey or Focus Group Discussions as necessary

Step 3

i. Economic valuation of VAWG

Step 4

i. Evaluation and validation of the data from Step 3

Step 5

i. Assessment of data to determine policy gaps and recommendations for policy and programmatic interventions

The files available for download below are intended to advise and assist users of the EconVAWG analytical framework. Each of them are referenced in, and listed and discussed at greater length in the annexes to, the Facilitator's Guide. All of them are also included as attachments to the main Guide PDF for users' offline reference.

The EconVAWG toolkit (.XLSX) This document facilitates the estimation of the cost of violence against women and girls.

The PROTO Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) Model (.XLSX)

Sample template for data input (.DOCX)

Household survey questionnaire (.DOCX)

Individual consent form (.DOCX)

Parental consent form for interviewees below the age of 15 (.DOCX)

Focus group discussion consent form (.DOCX)

‘Economic Cost of Violence against Women and Girls: Findings on Lesotho’ - presentation by Bazlul H Khondker (.PDF)

‘Methodology to Assess Economic Cost of Violence against Women and Girls Applications to Seychelles and Lesotho’ - presentation by Bazlul H Khondker (.PDF)

Case studies

Lesotho

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An important finding of the costing exercise completed in Lesotho demonstrated the effects of VAWG in the society. For instance, the cost of VAWG to girls was 0.822 per cent of GDP (or learning time lost in school); the cost to adult women was around 2.780 per cent of GDP; the cost to the public sector or fiscal cost was 2.264 per cent of GDP; the cost to the private sector was 1.946 per cent of GDP; and thus the cost to the whole of society was 5.548 per cent of GDP.

It found that it impacted the health and education sector more than previously thought as the healthcare data collection in Lesotho is not able to capture the use of healthcare services by VAWG survivors. However, by using the above discussed assumptions, the report was able to estimate the cost of certain healthcare services (direct costs of medical treatment etc.) to be around M140.6 million or 0.405 per cent of GDP under the full coverage case

The use of an economy-wide model revealed some interesting implications for the private sector. Almost all of the 23 activities or sectors considered in the model were run by the private sector. Annual output loss to the private sector due to VAWG was M675.6 million or 1.946 percent of GDP. Given this high loss to the private sector, elimination of VAWG in Lesotho should also be a priority of this sector.

Seychelles

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In the Commonwealth Secretariat study in the Seychelles, important findings regarding the impact of VAWG on the economy were found. For instance, the cost of VAWG to girls is 0.296 per cent of GDP (or learning time lost in school); the cost to adult women is around 2.332 per cent of GDP; cost to the private sector is 1.997 per cent of GDP; and thus the cost to the whole of society is 4.625 per cent of GDP.

It was found that healthcare and education need special attention, and while healthcare data collection in Seychelles is not able to capture the use of healthcare services by survivors of VAWG, by using assumptions, the study was able to estimate the cost of certain healthcare services (direct costs of medical treatment etc.) to be around SCR 115 million or 0.60 per cent of GDP, yet other healthcare services costs could not be estimated due to data limitations. These include the emotional and psychological costs of VAWG.

Although in this report, the cost of VAWG is only considered for one year (2016), these costs may continue to have a far longer impact (e.g. until the death of VAWG survivors). For instance, it is argued that the health costs will last for as long as it takes to treat longer-term health effects.