Pleas for global peace are growing louder as the world witnesses the highest number of violent conflicts since 1945, with approximately 2 billion people living in conflict-affected countries by the end of 2020. Amid these crises and despite movement restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, forced displacement has continued to occur and even grow. By the end of 2020, 82.4 million people had been forcibly displaced worldwide, which means that 1 in 95 persons has currently been forcibly displaced. These numbers will increase, as the war in Ukraine is estimated to have already displaced over 7 million people in the country. The costs of war and conflict are high, affecting the poorest and most vulnerable the most and leading to global impacts and escalating humanitarian needs.

Globally, about 437,000 people were victims of homicide in 2020. Between 2015 and 2020, the global homicide rate declined by 5.2 per cent (from 5.9 homicides per 100,000 population to 5.6 per 100,000). Women and girls are disproportionately impacted by lethal violence in the home and account for about 60 per cent of all homicide victims killed by intimate partners or other family members.

The United Nations recorded at least 11,075 civilian conflict-related deaths in 12 of the world’s deadliest armed conflicts in 2021. This translates into 4.1 civilians per 100,000 population; one in eight of those deaths was the death of a woman or child. Compared with 2020, the number of deaths decreased by 26 per cent and by 80 per cent compared with 2015. Despite the overall reduction, many of these situations are fragile, with ongoing and growing risks of escalation and associated violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law. As at 12 April 2022, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights had recorded the killing of 1,932 civilians in the conflict in Ukraine and the actual figure is considerably higher.

Based on survey data from 114 countries, on average, approximately 69 per cent of the population report feeling safe or very safe walking alone around the area in which E/2022/55 22-06472 23/25 they live after dark, a figure that has remained stable over the period 2016–2021. Women continue to feel significantly less safe than men.

Violence against children is widespread, affecting children regardless of wealth or social status. In 76 countries (mostly low- and middle-income countries) with available data from 2013 to 2021, 8 in 10 children aged 1–14 years were subjected to some form of psychological aggression and/or physical punishment at home in the previous month.

In 2018, for every 10 victims of human trafficking detected globally, about 5 were adult women and 2 were girls. About one third of the overall number of detected victims were children. The sharp increase in unemployment rates brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to increase trafficking in persons. Ukrainian refugees, mostly women and children, are particularly at risk of human trafficking and exploitation.

Only 60 countries (mostly low- and middle-income countries) have internationally comparable data on sexual violence in childhood against girls and only 12 have produced such data for boys. Across regions with representative estimates in 2020, the prevalence of sexual violence in childhood among young women aged 18–29 years ranges from 2 per cent in Central and Southern Asia to 7 per cent in Oceania (excluding Australia and New Zealand).

By the end of 2020, 11.2 million people were held behind bars compared with just under 11.8 million people in 2019, representing the first decrease in the last two decades. This re-education can be attributed to various factors, including the emergency release of prisoners and reduced admissions of new detainees due to court delays or reduced crime and/or law enforcement activities during the period of the lockdown measures following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the share of prisoners held in detention without being sentenced was roughly 1 in every 3 prisoners, the same share since 2000.

On average, Member States with available data successfully traced 2 per cent of seized potentially traceable weapons between 2016 and 2020. In 2018–2019, according to available data, national authorities destroyed on average 48 per cent of the weapons seized, found and surrendered.

Globally, almost 1 in 6 businesses faces requests for bribe payments by public officials, based on establishment-level data from 145 countries surveyed during 2006–2021.

Parliaments and their leaders have become younger and more gender-diverse in the past five years. Representation of youth (aged 45 years or under) stood at 28.1 per cent in 2018, climbed to 31.1 per cent in 2021 and then dropped to 30.2 per cent in 2022. While the proportion of women speakers rose gradually from 17.3 per cent in 2018 to 22 per cent in 2022, this continues to be below the global average proportion of women in parliament (26.1 per cent). The proportion of women committee chairs fell from 26.8 per cent in 2021 to 26.2 per cent in 2022. Male parliamentarians aged 46 years or over continue to dominate leadership positions in parliament, holding 71.8 per cent of speaker posts and 60.5 per cent of committee chairs.

Learn more