Nova: Welcome to Aibrary. I'm Nova, and today we're diving into a report that is equal parts alarming and essential: the OECD's 2023 publication, "Breaking the Cycle of Gender-based Violence." And here's a number to start with — nearly one in three women worldwide experiences physical or sexual violence in her lifetime. Most often, at the hands of an intimate partner.

Nova: That is exactly the right question. A lot of reports describe the problem. This one maps the solution. The OECD surveyed its member countries, gathered robust data throughout 2022, and built what they call a Governance Framework around three pillars: Systems, Culture, and Access to Justice. It is essentially a blueprint for governments — but what makes it radical is that it puts victims and survivors at the absolute center of everything.

Nova: Precisely. And here's the uncomfortable truth the report brings to light: despite decades of commitments, despite international treaties like the Istanbul Convention, despite governments repeatedly naming this their top gender-equality priority — the machinery still isn't working. Thirty-eight percent of OECD countries don't even dedicate a specific budget to national GBV policies. Let that sink in.

Nova: Exactly. And that tension between stated priorities and actual investment is at the heart of this entire conversation. Today we are going to walk through what the report found, where the gaps are, and what a survivor-centered system would actually look like.

Nova: Good, because there are plenty.

Nova: Let's start with a number that puts the scale of this in perspective. Gender-based violence costs the global economy an estimated 2% of GDP every year. That works out to roughly $1.6 trillion annually. To put that in context, that is more than the entire GDP of most countries on Earth.

Nova: That's exactly the point the OECD makes. The costs cascade through every system. There are direct costs like healthcare, police, courts, shelters. Then indirect costs like lost productivity, lost earnings, children who grow up traumatized and face their own challenges. Studies cited in the report show that in some countries, intimate partner violence alone can cost up to 3.7% of GDP.

Nova: Yes. During COVID-19, as lockdowns trapped women at home with abusers, a systematic review of seven countries — including the United States, Australia, Italy, and Mexico — found that officially reported domestic violence incidents increased by an average of 7.9% during 2020. And those are just the reported cases. The UN Population Fund predicted an additional 15 million cases of intimate partner violence for an average three-month lockdown.

Nova: This is one of the report's most damning findings. Only 36% of OECD countries surveyed had introduced stand-alone crisis management plans to combat GBV. The European Institute for Gender Equality found that, prior to the pandemic, not a single EU member state had a national policy that accounted for intimate partner violence in crisis situations. Zero.

Nova: Pillar One is Systems — the legal, policy, and institutional architecture. And the report's findings here are a real gut check. Let's start with the law. Domestic violence is only criminalized in 32 OECD countries. Not all acts — physical, sexual, psychological, and economic abuse — are covered in national legal frameworks.

Nova: That's correct. And the gaps get more specific. Only 13% of OECD countries surveyed collect data on economic violence — things like controlling a partner's access to money, sabotaging their employment. Only 30% collect data on psychological violence and technology-facilitated violence. If you don't measure it, you can't legislate against it, and you certainly can't prosecute it.

Nova: Absolutely. And then there's the money question. As we mentioned, 38% of OECD countries do not dedicate specific budgets to national GBV policies. Coordination mechanisms between agencies remain uneven. Information-sharing between central and subnational governments is inadequate. The report essentially says: countries have built the policy scaffolding, but in too many places there's no foundation underneath it.

Nova: That sums it up. But there are bright spots. The report highlights countries that are doing whole-of-government approaches well — where multiple ministries work together, where police, health systems, and social services share information and coordinate. Those models exist. The challenge is scaling them.

Nova: It is, and the report is blunt about this. Most data collection efforts are not disaggregated by all the necessary variables — by forms of violence, by the intersectional experiences of victims, by information on perpetrators. Without that granular data, you can't design targeted interventions. You're essentially flying blind.

Nova: Pillar Two is Culture. And this is where the report gets really interesting — and challenging — because it's not just about public awareness campaigns. It's about transforming the culture of governance itself and the deep social norms that enable violence.

Nova: It means every agency, every police station, every hospital, every social service office needs to operate with a victim-and-survivor-centered mindset. And the report found a pretty striking gap here: when countries design GBV policies, victims and survivors are the least consulted stakeholders. The people with lived experience are barely in the room.

Nova: Right. And less than half — only 43% — of OECD countries reported adopting practices that account for victims' intersectional experiences. So an immigrant woman, an Indigenous woman, a woman with a disability, a trans person — their specific vulnerabilities and needs are not being factored into policy design in most countries.

Nova: Exactly. And then there's integrated service delivery, or ISD. The idea is that instead of a survivor having to navigate six different agencies — police, healthcare, housing, legal aid, counseling, child services — all separately, often retelling her story each time, those services work together seamlessly. The report found that less than half of OECD countries — 48% — promote and implement this approach.

Nova: It is, and the research is clear on that. Now, the Culture Pillar also addresses something enormously important: engaging men and boys. The report emphasizes that prevention cannot succeed without transforming harmful masculinities and engaging men as allies. This is not about vilification — it's about addressing the root cultural norms that make violence possible in the first place.

Nova: Yes, the follow-up report dives deep into how legal and service responses, while essential, are insufficient if we don't also tackle the norms that drive male violence. It's a paradigm shift — from just responding to violence to actually preventing it by changing what society teaches boys about power, control, and masculinity.

Nova: Pillar Three is Access to Justice and Accountability. And the numbers here are some of the most sobering in the entire report.

Nova: Only 16% of OECD countries surveyed use legal needs surveys to understand what survivors actually need from the justice system. Sixteen percent. That means 84% of countries are essentially guessing about the legal barriers survivors face.

Nova: Precisely. And the report pushes beyond just traditional criminal justice. It explores three innovative approaches: restorative justice, problem-solving justice, and therapeutic justice. These are models that don't just ask "what law was broken and who did it?" — they ask "what harm was caused, what does the survivor need to heal, and how do we prevent this from happening again?"

Nova: That's a valid concern, and the report acknowledges that these approaches require extremely careful implementation with survivor safety as the absolute priority. But when done right, problem-solving justice — like specialized domestic violence courts — can address root causes. Therapeutic justice can connect perpetrators to treatment while ensuring accountability. And restorative practices, when survivors choose them voluntarily, can provide a sense of closure that traditional courtrooms never deliver.

Nova: The report is very clear on this. Justice systems and processes are complex. Survivors from immigrant and ethnic minority communities, those without access to communication technologies, those in rural areas — they face compounded barriers. Accessible information is crucial. If you don't know your rights or how the system works, the system effectively doesn't exist for you.

Nova: Yes. The report emphasizes that intersectionality is not an academic concept here — it is literally a matter of life and death. A migrant woman experiencing violence faces a completely different set of obstacles than a citizen woman. And if the justice system doesn't account for that, it will fail her.

Nova: So let's bring this together. The OECD's "Breaking the Cycle of Gender-based Violence" is not a comfortable read. But it is an essential one. It tells us that one in three women globally will experience violence. It tells us that $1.6 trillion evaporates from the global economy every year because of it. And it tells us that despite governments calling this their top gender-equality priority, the systems meant to protect survivors are underfunded, uncoordinated, and often designed without survivors in the room.

Nova: But the prescription is clear. Build systems with dedicated budgets and coordinated, whole-of-government approaches. Transform culture by consulting survivors, integrating services, and engaging men and boys in prevention. And redesign justice pathways so they actually meet the legal needs of survivors — through specialized courts, through restorative and therapeutic models, and by making information truly accessible to everyone, especially the most marginalized.

Nova: The OECD has given governments the blueprint. The frameworks, the data, the case studies, the policy recommendations — it is all there. The question now is whether the political will and the funding will follow. Because every day those gaps remain, real people pay the price.

Nova: Thank you for listening. Until next time.