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. The United Nations Populations Fund estimates that as many as 5,000 women and girls are murdered by family members each year in so-called honor killings around the world. According to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, honor killings have been reported in Bangladesh, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Sweden, Turkey, Uganda and the United Kingdom. FGM is commonly practiced in various countries in the Middle East and Africa, though it has also been documented in Asia, the United States and Europe. An increasing number of such acid burnings have been reported in Bangladesh, Nigeria and Cambodia.