A/HRC/7/6 page 16 designing studies to explore a series of definitions, including those for local legal statutes and internationally agreed standards: a direction some prevalence researchers have already endorsed.23 This, in turn, would allow the international community to set a global definition of violence against women, which national prevalence measures will be expected to operationalize. 1. Grave violence against women indicator 57. The key proposal is to reach international agreement on a definition of grave violence against women, which can be applied statistically across a range of survey designs, and be measured across lifetime as the headline figure, and of the past 12 months to track trends, including willingness to report and availability of support, both proxies for improvements in State responses and decreased tolerance/normalization. 58. The indicator for grave violence against women would not include every incident of violence, and as such may raise concerns. It remains the case, however, that an indicator cannot encompass everything, and is not a substitute for qualitative and quantitative research. Such studies are required at the national level in order to calculate the international indicator. The recommendation ensures a wide range of forms of violence against women is included and seeks to circumvent many of the political, legal and technical debates which would otherwise delay progress. As a single composite indicator, it offers potential for integration into other indices, such as the Gender-related Development Index and the Gender Empowerment Measure. The advantages of such an indicator are that it: • Combines measurements of prevalence, frequency and severity • Ensures that violence used to control women is measured, and that spurious gender symmetry cannot be used to undermine policy advances • Avoids long-standing and irresolvable political differences on how to define violence against women by seeking a new consensus, while recognizing that wider definitions will continue to be used by States and in academic research • Limits the impact of divergent rates of underreporting in different contexts, since grave violence is more likely to be revealed • The 12-month measure will enable documentation in time series, while the lifetime indicator ensures that one-time experiences with lifetime consequences (female genital mutilation, forced/child marriage, rape) are not excluded 23 See Tjaden, P. (2005), Defining and measuring violence against women: Background, issues and recommendations, Statistical Journal of the United Nations, UNECE, 23 (3-4): 217-224.