Magnitude, Distribution and Consequences of Violence
Violence in all its forms accounts for over 1.5 million deaths a year, some 90% of which occur in low- and middle-income countries. This total can be broken down into 52% (or 782'000) due to suicide, 35.5% (or 535'000) due to homicide, and just over 12% (182'000) as a direct result of war or some other form of conflict. Thus, most of the deaths due to violence occur in settings which are at peace and most perpetrators are the victims themselves or people who are close to the victim such as parents, intimate partners, friends, and acquaintances.
By way of comparison, the 1.5 millions deaths a year due to violence is greater than the number of deaths due to tuberculosis (1.34 million), road traffic injuries (1.21 million), and malaria (830'000), but slightly less than the number of people who die from HIV/AIDS (1.77 million).
For every death due to violence, there are numerous nonfatal injuries. In 2008, over 16 million cases of non-fatal violence-related injuries were severe enough to require medical attention. Beyond deaths and injuries, forms of violence such as child maltreatment, intimate partner violence, and elder maltreatment have been found to be highly prevalent.
Read more about this topic: Violence
Famous quotes containing the words distribution, consequences and/or violence:
“In this distribution of functions, the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state, he is, Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men’s thinking.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There are more consequences to a shipwreck than the underwriters notice.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but left to its own course it ends in power’s disappearance.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)