WHO calls for urgent action on devastating impact of violence

The 192-member United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) today unanimously called for urgent action to stem the global public health impact of violence in view of its devastating effect on physical, mental and reproductive health and the vast amount of human and financial health resources required to respond to it.

“By adopting this resolution on violence and health, the world is rejecting the view that violence is inevitable,” WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland said of the motion adopted by the World Health Assembly (WHA) – the WHO’s annual meeting – in Geneva.

“Public health has made some remarkable achievements in recent decades, particularly with regard to reducing rates of many childhood diseases,” she added. “However, saving our children from these diseases only to let them fall victim to violence, to the savagery of war and conflict, or to self-inflicted injuries, would be a failure of public health.”

Every day, roughly 2,200 people commit suicide, 1,400 people die as a result of homicide and 850 people are killed as a result of war. Thousands more remain permanently disabled after acts of non-fatal violence. After discussing these and other findings of the WHO’s “World report on violence and health,” delegates stated their commitment to scale up the global response to violence.

The resolution calls for countries to develop national plans to ensure more targeted and coordinated action to prevent violence by all sectors of society. It also calls for better data collection to ensure a more accurate description of the magnitude of the problem and who is most affected by it; improved services for victims of violence to ensure that when they contact health services victims receive not only treatment for injuries and diseases but also mental, social and legal support; and, a greater focus on addressing the root causes of violence.

“We owe our children – the most vulnerable citizens in any society – a life free from violence and fear,” former South African President Nelson Mandela said in the foreword of the report.” We must address the roots of violence. Only then will we transform the past century’s legacy from a crushing burden into a cautionary lesson.”