Every Wednesday at half-past one, in the narrow lanes of the southern Delhi slum of Dakshinpuri, a group of local women congregate in a windowless room. They are members of the “Mahila Panchayat,” or “female village council.” They are bound by a common cause—justice for women who suffer violence and harassment in their homes.

Nargez* was 14 when her father arranged her marriage to a 55-year-old stranger who offered a large amount of money. After years of sexual and physical abuse, she fled with her brother’s help and sought safety in his home. But when she tried to file for divorce, her husband pressed charges against her for running away and against her brother for helping her. They were sentenced to seven years.

On December 14, 2016, 23-year-old feminist activist Débora Soriano de Melo was bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat in a bar in São Paulo, Brazil. There was evidence that the young activist suffered sexual abuse that same night. Detectives suspected Willy Gorayeb Liger, a manager of the bar, in the assault and called for his arrest on rape charges.

The life of a Bollywood stuntwoman outside the realm of the silver screen caught India’s attention last month when a video captured her struggle behind the screen. Geeta Tandon spoke about her marriage at the age of 15 and surviving domestic abuse, including rape, from her husband.

The mountains of Itombwe are home to some of the rare gorillas of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. An area about the size of Rwanda and Burundi put together, the Itombwe Plateau is one of the poorest parts of one of the poorest countries in the world. It is also home to 23,785 adolescent girls, according to Maman Shujaa, a women’s empowerment organization based in the South Kivu capital of Bukavu.

There are various forms of violence that women and girls experience, but intimate partner violence is, by far, the most common, with one in three women affected globally. And while a common approach to designing prevention programs for intimate partner violence includes targeting men and women in relationships, new evidence shows that the approach may be misguided.