More than a billion adults will be victims of common property or violent crime each year across the world.
More than a billion women alive today have been raped, including the many women who experienced sexual initiation as a rape (often infected with HIV).
Similar numbers have been sexually assaulted as adults or beaten by their intimate partner; domestic violence is a worldwide scourge.
Most of victims of violence do not call the police out of fear of retaliation or distrust of the authorities, and most of those who do report the crime will not see their offender arrested, too often for unsatisfactory reasons.
Across many European states, including The Netherlands and Great Britain, every victim has access to a victim support scheme that will provide support and assistance.
In France, more than 50% of criminal sentences are accompanied with a restitution order, and every victim has a right to a legal aid lawyer to present their civil claim during the criminal prosecution.
The English Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority pays more than $1 million a year to victims of extreme violence; in the US, compensation payments made by the 50 states total over $450 million annually.
More than 11,000 Gacaca courts exist in Rwanda providing victims of the genocide with access to truth and reparation as well as justice.
Many countries have innovative restorative justice programs, some drawing on ancient cultural traditions, some of modern invention.
All-female police stations started by the women’s movement in Brazil have spread to many Latin American and Asian countries. The State of Tamil Nadu in India has over 200 of these stations and recently hired more than 1,000 female police inspectors to help staff them.
In the USA, substantial federal fines of corporate offenders help fund many victim services nationwide.
In Lesotho, a micro-finance and women empowerment program cut assaults against women in half.
Oregon is about to become the latest US state to make victim rights enforceable under its constitution, and a statute expected to be enacted after the adoption of the amendment sets up an unusually rigorous enforcement regimen.
Australia and Canada now have Ombudsman to advance and protect victim rights.
More and more countries now have annual commemorations of crime victims and of the rights and services owed to them.
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