A woman is six times more likely to be killed by an intimate partner in SA than anywhere else in the world, a conference on sexual violence heard on Wednesday.

"Twenty-five percent of women in the general population and in 40 to 50 percent in the targeted studies have been victims of physical intimate partner violence," Professor Rachel Jewkes of the Sexual Violence Research Initiative said in Benoni, Johannesburg on Wednesday.

The conference was aimed at addressing and preventing sexual assault and violence.

She said that over 40 percent of men were violent towards their partner.

There was also compelling evidence that women who were abused and men who abused them were more likely to be HIV-positive.

"Women who have experienced physical violence from their partners are 54 percent likely to have HIV. Men who have perpetrated physical violence are more than twice as likely to have HIV," she said.

The conference also heard that South Africa had the highest per capita alcohol consumption levels in the world.

Perpetrators were very often drunk, as were the women victims.

"Two thirds of women killed by intimate partners in the western Cape were very drunk with a median blood alcohol level two times over the legal driving limit."

Speaking about the use of guns in rape and domestic violence, Joseph Dube, from the International Action Network of Small Arms said police failed to try and find out whether perpetrators had guns when reacting to such incidents.

The conference ends on Thursday.

Sapa

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