Senegal’s first-ever national stand-alone survey on violence against women (VAW), published in 2025, revealed the magnitude of physical, psychological, sexual and economic violence – with 70.2% of women aged 15+ experiencing intimate partner violence since their first union, and 31.9% experiencing at least one form of violence in the 12 months preceding the survey.
It further exposed higher prevalence rates among women in urban versus rural areas (36.8 vs. 24.9%), women and girls with disabilities (with physical violence affecting 33.4%, vs. 30.3% without disabilities), and economically dependent women (with physical violence affecting 33.7%, vs. 22.7% of economically independent women).
Such findings are having a direct impact on policies and programming, informing the development of the 2025–2029 sectoral policy of the Ministry of Family, Social Action and Solidarity (MIFASS) and the ongoing development of the second National Action Plan to Combat Gender-Based Violence.
“The survey was published following our evaluation of the first National Action Plan,” says Astou Diouf Gueye, National Director of Equity and Gender Equality for MIFASS. “We have to take these data into account in considering targeted actions to address issues specific to certain communities or social groups.”
Based on survey findings highlighting the degree of technology-facilitated violence (affecting 8.1% of respondents over the past 12 months) and political violence (affecting 6.5% of respondents during the 2022 elections), she says MIFASS is planning to develop programmes to address these areas that were missing in the previous national action plan.
Diouf Gueye says MIFASS has already used the survey findings to better target interventions through two of its new programmes – on ‘Women’s Empowerment’ and ‘the Demographic Dividend’, and a sub-component of the latter on preventing and responding to VAW and protecting women’s rights – for example, by strengthening the helpline and victim support centres to help overcome difficulties in accessing services and judicial structures in certain regions. MIFASS is also using the survey data to support an existing project mapping survivor support services to improve the effectiveness of the national protection system.
“These data truly allowed us to better understand the phenomenon of violence, especially its most widespread forms and its level of manifestation,” says Diouf Gueye. “Consequently, we needed to develop programmatic responses. These were initially based on advocacy … and disseminating these data to the public. The first result we saw was political commitment at the highest level. Following the publication of these data, a presidential directive was issued at the Council of Ministers meeting on 31 December 2025, to intensify the advocacy and awareness-raising programme on gender-based violence.”
Diouf Gueye says MIFASS also used the survey results during a budget conference in April 2026 to ask the Ministry of Finance for a budget line dedicated to emergency support for victims and their social reintegration. While discussions with the Directorate General of the Budget are ongoing, she’s confident they’ll be successful “because the data have allowed us to see the need to direct resources towards care.”
Senegal’s VAW survey was rolled out between 2023 and 2025 by the National Agency for Statistics and Demography (ANSD), with support at every stage from UN Women Senegal. UN Women’s West and Central Africa Regional Office also produced user-friendly social media assets with key findings and a summary brief in December 2024, shared through two workshops and bilateral outreach to stakeholders – including civil society, researchers and community leaders – to gain early access to findings and integrate these data into their work and decision-making processes.
A deeper shift
These findings have since been widely used in advocacy to challenge social norms, influence public discourse and support calls for legal reform, reflecting a broader, systemic shift towards evidence-informed decision-making.
“I integrate the VAW survey data in our feminist advocacy and public discourse to challenge the normalization of violence and support legal reforms,” says Oulimata Suzanne Sy, a feminist activist from the WaxJotna campaign. “By using key strong data from the survey, we justify the need to change certain laws … and to hold the State accountable.”
Sy adds that by grounding her advocacy in data, her work has gained credibility and is contributing to reframing public debate on VAW.
In the research community, the survey is enabling more rigorous analysis. Tamba Ba, a statistician specializing in economic and social research, used VAW survey data to support analysis for a 2025 brief on the persistence of VAW in Senegal.
“These data allowed us to understand the real situation of violence despite the existence of policies, conventions and laws,” says Ba. “In a context where comprehensive and representative gender data remain limited, the availability of detailed VAW statistics provided a critical evidence base for research.”
At the community level, these data are also being translated into accessible messages that foster dialogue, awareness and collective action.
According to Awa Tine, from the Daafa Doy civil society organization: “We use the national VAW data alongside Senegalese Association of Women Lawyers’ data in radio programmes and community dialogues to support our community engagement activities to improve community-based response, care and support to women survivors of sexual violence.”
