Violence against women

Violence against women (VAW in short), also called gender-based violence, is violent acts mostly against women and girls. It is sometimes considered a hate crime. The reason for that is such acts of violence are done against women and girls mainly because they're female.
The United Nations' Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women says: "violence against women is a manifestation of historically unequal power of relations between men and women."
Violence against women has several broad categories: rape, sexual harassment, domestic violence, sexual violence, forced marriage and female genital mutilation are among those categories.
On 11 May 2011, Council of Europe has adopted Istanbul Convention against domestic violence and violence against women.