These guidelines aim to provide evidence-based guidance to health-care providers on the appropriate responses to intimate partner violence and sexual violence against women, including clinical interventions and emotional support. They also seek to raise awareness, among health-care providers and policy-makers, of violence against women, to better understand the need for an appropriate health-sector response to violence against women. They provide standards that can act as the basis for national guidelines, and for integrating these issues into health-care provider education, as well as helping health-care providers to be better informed about the care of women experiencing sexual assault and intimate partner violence.