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and torture of children (target 16.2). The Goals also include a commitment to build
capacities to prevent violence (target 16.a). In addition, several other Goals address
risk factors linked to violence, including ending poverty (Goal 1), ensuring healthy
lives and promoting well-being (Goal 3), ensuring quality education (Goal 4),
addressing inequalities (Goal 10) and making cities and settlements safe (Goal 11).
As recognized in the Goals, reducing and eliminating violence is critical to
transforming the world into a peaceful and inclusive global community.
92. Violence is a complex, multi-layered public health phenomenon that affects
mortality, mental health, sexual and reproductive health and infectiou s and
non-communicable disease outcomes across the globe. 45 The reduction or
elimination of violence within the home, medical and educational settings and
broader society is a prerequisite for the realization of the right to health. Violence is
one of the most compelling barriers to and determinants of the right to health.
93. There are many forms of violence. Child abuse and neglect, domestic violence
between intimate partners and suicide are interpersonal forms of violence. Armed
conflicts, State-perpetrated violence, terrorism and organized violent crime are
forms of collective violence. Although often viewed and studied as separate
phenomena, interpersonal and collective forms of violence share common risk and
protective factors and should be addressed as interrelated phenomena. 45 Some of
those common risk factors include social, economic and gender inequalities
(Goals 1-17), poverty (Goal 1), power asymmetries both in the family and in the
community (Goals 1, 5 and 16) and lack of mutual trust and respect . Both forms of
violence intensify the risk environment for human rights violations and abuse,
especially towards those groups perceived as vulnerable (Goals 3, 5 and 10).
94. To date, the approach to violence reduction has been fragmented,
compartmentalizing different forms of violence. Importantly, many forms of
violence continue to be tolerated within societies and even supported by States. For
example, violence against women and children remains accepted in many societies
as a cultural norm. The institutional care of young children, a clear act of violence
against children, remains widespread in many countries. Around the world, many
groups in vulnerable situations, including women, persons with disabilities,
migrants and refugees, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons,
experience numerous forms of violence. Each example is also a violation of various
human rights protected under international law, including the right to health.
95. A holistic approach to addressing violence is consistent with the aim of
collectively implementing the Sustainable Development Goal targets on violence
across the agenda. It is also consonant with the indivisible and interrelated nature of
human rights. From a human rights and public health perspective, v iolence must be
addressed comprehensively, including obligations to eliminate violence within
health-care settings, to address how structural factors, such as laws and policies,
institutionalize violence and to eliminate violence against women and children . 46
The right to health also includes an entitlement to safe access to health care and to a
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WHO, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and UNDP, Global Status Report
on Violence Prevention 2014 (Geneva, WHO, 2014).
Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 19 (1); Committee on the Rights of the Child, general
comment No. 13, para. 7 (a)-(c); Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against
Women, general recommendation No. 19, paras. 1 and 7; Committee on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights, general comment No. 14, paras. 10 and 12 (b); and A/HRC/22/53, para. 84.
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