Hong Kong (CNN) -- Why do rape perpetrators commit such acts? 
 
 In the first of its kind, a multi-country survey looked at how widespread rape and sexual violence is in six Asia-Pacific countries. And it also asked why. 
 
 A quarter of the men interviewed, said they had raped a woman or girl. 
 
 The report published in the medical journal The Lancet also brought insight into the socio-economic circumstances of the men who rape. 
 
 The study by the Partners for Prevention, comprised of several U.N. agencies, asked 10,178 men about their lives. They gathered information from the following countries: Bangladesh, China, Cambodia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Sri Lanka. 
 
 How widespread is rape? 
 
 The questionnaire did not contain the word "rape," because of the researcher's belief that most men do not think they have raped when they force women to have sex. 
 
 Instead, participants were asked questions like whether they ever "forced a woman who was not your wife or girlfriend at the time to have sex," if they ever "had sex with a woman who was too drunk or drugged to indicate whether she wanted it" or forced a partner, when she did not want to. 
 
 Here is the percentage of respondents who said they had raped a partner or non-partner. 
 
 In most countries, between one in five reported perpetrating a rape, although Papua New Guinea leads this proportion with more than half. 
 
 Rape of women in marriage was much more prevalent than non-partner rape, the survey found. 
 
 When does it start? 
 
 Early. More than half of respondents who raped a non-partner first did so as a teenager, with most of their first crimes occurring between the age of 15 and 19. 
 
 The study's authors say this "reinforces the need for early rape prevention if one is to intervene before the first rape is committed." 
 
 What's the likelihood of repeat offenses? 
 
 High. Nearly half of the respondents who said they had committed rape, perpetrated the crime on different women. 
 
 They were asked how many different women they had raped: 
 
 55.4% said they have raped 1 woman 
 
 28.3% said they have raped 2-3 women 
 
 12% said they have raped 4-10 women 
 
 4.2% said they have raped 10 or more women 
 
 Are women always the victim of sexual violence? 
 
 No. 
 
 6.2% of respondents say they have raped a man and a woman as a single perpetrator 
 
 30.2% of respondents say they have raped a man and a woman among multiple perpetrators (with others/in a group setting) 
 
 Why did they commit rape? 
 
 Sexual entitlement means a man feels he has a right to have sex, despite what the woman wants. Some respondents expressed they were bored, so rape was a pursuit of entertainment. Punishment was also cited as a reason, saying that some wanted to punish a female or was angry with the person. 
 
 Are there consequences for the rape? 
 
 Prison sentences were rare, with less than a quarter of the perpetrators receiving jail time. The study found: 
 
 55.2% said they felt guilt 
 
 35.7% said they were punished by friends or family 
 
 32.5% said they were arrested 
 
 22.9% said they were sent to prison 
 
 What's the background of a repeat rape offender? 
 
 Men with a history of victimization, such as experiencing childhood physical or sexual abuse, emotional abuse or neglect in childhood, were more likely to commit sexual violence than those without such a past, according to the study. 
 
 It also found that men who were poor or had no high school education were more likely to have raped in a group setting. ||||| Nearly a quarter of men in the Asia-Pacific region have admitted to committing rape at least once in their life, according to a new survey (pdf), with more than half of those respondents claiming they raped for the first time while in their teens. 
 
 The study covering six countries – Bangladesh, China, Cambodia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Sri Lanka – found that 10% of men admitted to raping at least once a woman who was not their partner, a figure that rose to nearly 25% when rape of a partner was included. 
 
 Nearly 75% of those who had committed rape said they did so because they felt sexually entitled; more than half said they did it for entertainment. 
 
 The UN-led study on men and violence collected data from more than 10,000 men and 3,000 women aged 18-49 between 2010 and 2013 in order to understand why men commit violence against women and what can be done to prevent it. 
 
 The findings are significant because the Asia-Pacific region is home to over half of the world's population, making the amount and range of information collected "unprecedented and ground-breaking", said Dr Emma Fulu of Partners for Prevention, the joint-UN programme that co-ordinated the study. 
 
 "This is really the first time we've had data on rape perpetration on this scale, not just in the region but in the world, and I think it probably suggests rape is more widespread than we had thought, and the perpetration of rape starts earlier than people perhaps thought, which really highlights the need to start working with younger boys and girls to stop the violence," she said. 
 
 Men who had suffered childhood physical or sexual abuse themselves were more likely to perpetrate sexual violence later in life, researchers found, while those who had paid for sex or had a high number of sexual partners were more likely to rape a non-partner. 
 
 "It's not just about men's experience of physical and sexual abuse as children, but the emotional environment they grow up in, which has a big impact on violence later in life, as well as the other types of victimisation, like homophobic bullying and violence and being raped themselves," said Fulu. "It's not in any way excusing men's behaviour – men still need to be held accountable for their action – but it does highlight that we need to understand the lives of men." 
 
 Recommendations for reducing rape in the region include changing social norms, such as the normalisation of violence against women in many countries, promoting alternative notions of "manhood', ending impunity for men who commit rape, and cutting down on the use of violence to discipline children. 
 
 "The huge variation of prevalence of rape and violence across countries shows that rape and violence is not inevitable," Fulu said. "While violence exists in every country, the fact that there is such variation highlights that it isn't inevitable and that there are things we can do to prevent it." 
 
 Participants were asked to answer the more sensitive questions on a hand-held device that recorded their responses anonymously. 
 
 Researchers purposefully avoided using terms such as "violence" and "rape" in the survey, and instead asked questions such as "Have you ever forced a woman who was not your wife or girlfriend at the time to have sex?" and "Have you have ever had sex with a woman who was too drugged or drunk to indicate whether she wanted it?". 
 
 The number of men who had committed rape varied greatly from country to country, and even within countries. 
 
 Bougainville in Papua New Guinea recorded the heaviest prevalence of rape of any kind, where 62% of respondents admitted to having committed rape, more than a quarter of them in the past year. 
 
 The lowest was in urban Bangladesh, where 9.5% of interviewees admitted rape. 
 
 Nearly 70% of all the men surveyed reported suffering no legal consequences for their actions, with that figure as high as 96.5% in Sri Lanka.
– India rape cases may be making headlines, but they're only the tip of the iceberg, according to an "unprecedented and ground-breaking" UN study. The anonymous survey of 10,000 men and 3,000 women in Bangladesh, China, Cambodia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and Sri Lanka—home to more than half the global population—found 25% of men had raped their partner, while 10% raped another woman at least once, the Guardian reports. (CNN has a breakdown of figures per country.) Some 75% said they felt entitled to do so, while more than half cited entertainment value; 70% said they went unpunished. "This is really the first time we've had data on rape perpetration on this scale, not just in the region but in the world, and I think it probably suggests rape is more widespread than we had thought," said one author, who points to paid sex, physical and sexual abuse as a child, and having many sexual partners, as factors that increase the likelihood a man will rape. And since more than half committed rape as a teenager, it "highlights the need to start working with younger boys and girls to stop the violence," she said. Options include changing social norms, cutting down on childhood violence, and prosecuting rapists. "The fact that there is such variation" by country, she says, "highlights that it isn't inevitable and that there are things we can do to prevent it."