Abstract

A global consensus recognizes violence against women as a violation of human rights, gender discrimination, and an attack on women's freedom and dignity as well as their physical and mental health. With a prevalence rate of 46%, domestic violence is the most widespread form of violence in Morocco and the one with the most painful and long-lasting consequences.
It has serious consequences on the health of the victims and their social and professional activities, as well as on their children, particularly their health, schooling and psychosocial development. More than 16% of women who are victims of this violence have at least one child under the age of five who has health problems, particularly of the psychological and behavioral nature.
Beyond its direct consequences on the victim and her close circle, domestic violence has an impact on society as a whole. This negative impact is evaluated through the decrease in the socio-professional activity of the victims, the social costs due to the provision and maintenance of health care, social services and justice services, as well as the tensions that this violence causes in family and social relationships.
In addition to the psychological and physical abuse that women who are victims of physical and/or sexual violence in the context of marriage suffer, there is also an economic cost to this violence, which accentuates the negative impacts of this scourge.
In this work, we will detail the components of the economic cost of violence and the valuation of this cost, whether in monetary value or in the number of days of productivity lost, as well as the difficulties encountered when calculating the total cost of violence.
Thus, the cost of domestic violence borne by households is estimated at 1.98 billion DH, or ---% of GDP. Health care expenses constitute the major element of the direct cost of violence and the income lost as a result of the cessation of paid or domestic work forms almost the entire indirect cost.
The marital space alone accounts for more than two-thirds of the overall cost of violence, with a share of 70%, followed by public places (16%) and the family context (13%).
Several challenges in estimating the economic cost of violence have resulted in the it being measured primarily at the individual/household level. It is therefore often underestimated what the true economic cost of violence is in Morocco.
The data used in this work is taken from the national survey on violence against women conducted by the HCP in 2019 among 12,000 women aged 15-74 years.
Keywords: domestic violence, economic cost of violence
1 Statistician-Engineer Head of Division House hold Survey, High Commission for Planning s.zarrari@hcp.ma
2 Statistician-Engineer Head of socioeconomic House hold Survey, High Commission for Planning s.drissielbouzaidi@hcp.ma