2025-11-24

Love never starts with a fight

Today, many young women believe that they are expected to agree to strangulation with their partner. The phenomenon has become increasingly common and has crept further down the ages, which is a frightening development. Strangulation is not something that anyone should have to put up with.

When the Swedish Agency for Gender Equality last year asked nearly 6,000 young people in grade 9 whether they had been subjected to sexual and physical violence in a relationship, one in ten answered yes to that question, and the majority of these were girls. These are frightening figures when you consider that the respondents are only around 15 years old.

In the same survey, as many as one in three respondents who have been in a partner relationship state that they have been subjected to violence in a close relationship, but this is mainly digital and psychological violence. That is also very bad. We know that young people who have been subjected to violence in a close relationship in some way are more likely to engage in self-harm, suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts.

We and society as a whole must therefore now teach young girls and boys with great emphasis that love never, ever involves violence. We adults have a responsibility to clearly show and explain where the line between healthy and unhealthy relationships is.

Violence prevention work needs to be strengthened and expanded to also include younger children. The public information about violence in intimate relationships that exists today is often based on an adult perspective, which means that many young people do not recognize themselves and may therefore hesitate to seek help and support. If violence prevention work among younger people increases, the risk of being exposed to violence in intimate relationships at older ages will hopefully decrease.

We at Zonta International believe that the issue of protecting young people
girls from violence is one of the most important gender equality issues of our time.