For many years, a major concern of the German development cooperation has been to achieve greater equality between men and women. The focus on the political aspect of societal change and cooperation with partner countries has allowed entry points for addressing politically sensitive issues in a systematic way. Gender Based Violence is one such issue. The violence against women and girls is an issue that has hitherto been overlooked by the development cooperation experts, which links to the international human rights debate. Needless to say: any form of violence against anybody, regardless of gender, must of course be condemned and punished. Women and men are victims of violence and human rights violations, but this publication focuses mainly on the ending of violations that are committed solely against females as their plight often goes unnoticed because in different ways in every culture around the world, they are treated with less regard to men.