United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2024). World Population Prospects 2024, Online Edition. Estimates 2024.
Proportion of women aged 15-49 years experiencing sexual violence perpetrated by someone other than an intimate partner at least once in their lifetime. Source: Institut National de la Statistique et de la Démographie (INStaD). 2023. Enquête par Grappes à Indicateurs Multiples, Bénin, 2021-2022, Rapport des résultats de l'enquête. Cotonou, Bénin : INStaD.
Proportion of ever-partnered women aged 15-49 years experiencing intimate partner physical and/or sexual violence at least once in their lifetime. Source: Institut National de la Statistique et de la Démographie (INStaD). 2023. Enquête par Grappes à Indicateurs Multiples, Bénin, 2021-2022, Rapport des résultats de l'enquête. Cotonou, Bénin : INStaD.
Proportion of ever-partnered women aged 15-49 years experiencing intimate partner physical and/or sexual violence in the last 12 months. Source: Institut National de la Statistique et de la Démographie (INStaD). 2023. Enquête par Grappes à Indicateurs Multiples, Bénin, 2021-2022, Rapport des résultats de l'enquête. Cotonou, Bénin : INStaD.
(1) Urgently take all measures necessary to ensure the effective implementation of the new legislative framework aimed at the prevention and prohibition of violence against women, including by enacting its implementing decree, increasing the human and financial resources of the judicial system and establishing a monitoring mechanism to assess the progress of the implementation of the Action Plan; (2) Provide systematic and mandatory training to all relevant professionals, including judges, prosecutors, lawyers, police officers and health-care providers, to ensure that victims of violence are dealt with in a gender-sensitive manner; (3) Step up its efforts to disseminate information on the existence of new legal provisions, such as those prohibiting marital rape; encourage women to report domestic and sexual violence; and ensure that women are duly informed about the available legal remedies, that all such reports are effectively investigated and that perpetrators are prosecuted and punished; (4) Provide adequate assistance and protection to women victims of violence, in particular shelter facilities; (5) Collect data on cases of all forms of gender-based violence, disaggregated by sex, age and relationship between the victim and the perpetrator, including on the number of complaints, prosecutions and convictions, and on the sentences imposed on perpetrators, and inform the Committee thereof in its next periodic report.
(1) Hold consultations with civil society and women's organizations and traditional leaders, at the departmental and municipal levels, with a view to fostering a dialogue on harmful practices and promoting wide acceptance of the new legislative framework; (2) Step up efforts to effectively implement its legislative framework addressing harmful practices, by systematically training judges and law enforcement officers; to establish mechanisms to facilitate victim identification; and to ensure effective regional and bilateral cooperation with neighbouring countries to ensure the prosecution and punishment of all acts of female genital mutilation.
(1) Withdraw the discriminatory provisions of the Persons and Family Code in order to bring its legislative framework into full compliance with articles 15 and 16 of the Convention; (2) Strengthen its efforts to conduct comprehensive educational measures and awareness-raising campaigns about the Persons and Family Code, targeting rural areas in particular, and, in collaboration with civil society, to systematically raise the awareness of traditional leaders regarding the renunciation of the application of customary laws and practices, as provided for in the Code.
(1) Expedite the adoption of the draft law on trafficking in persons, in line with the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, in order to fully implement article 6 of the Convention, so as to strengthen mechanisms for the investigation, prosecution and punishment of trafficking offenders; (2) Provide adequate assistance to victims, including refugee and asylum-seeking women and girls working as vidomegons, and to consider the establishment of a national mechanism to coordinate efforts to combat trafficking; (3) Provide training to the judiciary, law enforcement officials, the border police and social workers on the existing anti-trafficking provisions regarding children and on how to identify and deal with victims of trafficking; (4) Collect sex-disaggregated data on the trafficking of women and girls and include those data in its next periodic report.
Benin’s Constitution does not explicitly address violence against women and girls. However, it does include equality and human rights provisions for the protection of individuals.
Law No. 2011-26 of 9 January 2012, on Prevention and Repression of Violence Against Women.
Benin does not have an official National Action Plan on Violence Against Women, but it has implemented strategic programmes such as UN joint initiatives and a strategic development plan for its National Women’s Institute (2024–2030)