One in four men admitted raping a woman once in their life according to a report from United Nations.

The study was conducted through interviewing 10,000 men aged between 18 and 49-years-old in Asia-Pacific region - Bangladesh, China, Cambodia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Papua New Guinea. Authors for the research said that the findings may not represent the entire Asia and Pacific Region but those men interviewed for the study are representation of a good demographic match for the countries studied.

During the research, the men were asked two questions:

  • Have you ever had sex with your partner when you knew she didn't want to but you thought she should agree because she's your wife/ partner?
  • Have you ever had sex with a woman or girl when she was too drunk or drugged to say whether she wanted it or not?

Reasons for Rape

"They believed they had the right to have sex with the woman regardless of consent. The second most common motivation reported was to rape as a form of entertainment, so for fun or because they were bored. Perhaps surprisingly, the least common motivation was alcohol," report author Dr Emma Fulu said.

Almost three quarters of those interviewed said that they committed rape for "sexual entitlement." The fourth reason for rape was as a form of punishment because the man was angry. Those men who had experienced violence and who were raped when they were children had the biggest potential to commit the same crime.

On the other hand, Professor Rachel Jewkes, who conducted the interview in Papua New Guinea, noted that in the area they surveyed it was the chaotic history which created destructive civil conflict spanning from the late 1980 to 2005 that motivated men to commit rape.

"It's an area where the conflict hasn't been absolutely resolved. When we looked at mental health we saw particularly high prevalence of post traumatic stress disorder including uncontrollable aggression, the disruption of normal social relations and relations in the family," Ms Jewkes said.

"These data justifiably create global outrage, accentuated by horrific recent high-profile cases, including the brutal gang rape of a student in New Delhi. More than half of non-partner rape perpetrators first did so as adolescents, which affirms that young people are a crucial target population for prevention of rape. The challenge now is to turn evidence into action, to create a safer future for the next generation of women and girls," Dr Michele Decker of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore said in an interview with BBC.