The laws of many countries around the world, such as India, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, have explicit exemptions for marital rape. Additionally, laws in countries such as Uruguay and Ethiopia allow rapists to escape punishment if they marry their victims. Further, armed conflict situations and civil wars in approximately 100 countries around the world have seen the increasing use of rape as a weapon of warfare. Women civilians and refugees, specifically targeted by armed forces, are subject to mass rape, forced pregnancy, and sexual slavery. According to the World Health Organization, results of large-scale studies conducted in various developing and industrialized countries indicate that between 16 and 52 percent of women reported having been assaulted by an intimate partner.
Many cultures condone or legally sanction domestic violence.
In Northern Nigeria, for example, Section 55 of the Penal Code allows a husband to discipline his wife so long as the action does not amount to the infliction of grievous hurt. According to the United Nations Population Fund, an estimated 4 million women and girls around the world are bought and sold either into marriage, prostitution or slavery. Trafficking is an international multi-billion dollar industry. Traffickers operating across international borders procure their victims in many ways. These women and girls suffer unspeakable human rights violations as commodities of the trade in human beings.