It happens year-round, but we usually hear about it only once a year. Right around the observation of International Women's Day, on March 8, studies are released on the unfortunate state of women around the world. This year, the statistics don't seem to be much better than the year before. Women still are victims of violence, and the violence against them still is treated with impunity.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who last year launched the campaign UNite to End Violence Against Women, says the abuse against women continues to be unabated in every continent, country and culture. “It takes a devastating toll on women's lives, on their families and on society as a whole,” he claims in his most recent report. And while he says most societies prohibit such violence, the reality is that too often it is “covered up or tacitly condoned.”

One in five women worldwide has been the victim of rape or attempted rape, while in some nations, up to one in three women is beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime. These are some of the grim statistics in this year's U.N. report on violence against women. Women ages 15-44 are more at risk from rape and domestic violence than from cancer, automobile accidents, war and malaria, according to World Bank data.

But even more dramatic is the number of women who lose their lives to domestic abuse. In Colombia, for example, one woman is reported killed by her partner or former partner every six days. In Peru, 403 women were killed between 2004 and July 2007, 40 percent of them by their husband or boyfriend. Fortunately for Peruvian women, the Justice Department has just published a law making femicide a punishable crime. This will help it gather more accurate statistics and begin to protect women at risk.

Another macho society that has a bleak history on violence against women is Mexico. Much has been said about the hundreds of women who have been kidnapped, raped and murdered in and around the border city of Juarez in the past decade. Most of them are unsolved mysteries in which everything from drug trafficking to a series of copycat serial murders has been cited. But the violence against women is more generalized around the country. So far this year, 264 women were killed in Mexico, half of them at the hands of their spouse.

Experts say that women who die victims of domestic abuse were most likely beaten by their partner before. According to a new report, seven out of 10 women in Mexico over 15 years of age have suffered some kind of abuse. Liliana Rojero, from the National Women's Institute, says that women see violence as a natural event in their lives. “Thirty percent of women who are beaten think they are beaten out of love for them. They think, 'If he hits me, he must feel something for me,'” she says.

Being the mother of two young girls, there is one particular part of this year's reports on violence against women that I find troublesome. Statistics show that one in three teenagers has experienced violence in a dating relationship. Dating violence crosses all racial, economic and social lines. Among young girls, date rape is the most common kind of rape, with one in four girls expected to fall victim to rape or attempted rape before she reaches the age of 25, and three out of five before they reach 18.

As my 14-year-old daughter and I spoke about the infamous case of young singer Rihanna, who allegedly was beaten by her 19-year-old boyfriend Chris Brown, she said, “Mom, he will not do it again; he's famous and knows he'll get in trouble.” Unfortunately, statistics prove otherwise. For the sake of our daughters and all women victims of violence around the world, let's hope next year's report on the cycle of violence and the impunity for the abusers is more promising than it's been up to now.

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(Maria Elena Salinas is the author of “I AM MY FATHER'S DAUGHTER: LIVING A LIFE WITHOUT SECRETS.” Reach her at www .mariaesalinas.com)

© 2009 by Maria Elena Salinas

Distributed by King Features Syndicate