Violence against women: an EU-wide survey

http://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra-2014-vaw-survey-at-a-glance_en_0.pdf

This report is based on interviews with 42,000 women across the 28 Member States of the European Union (EU). It shows that violence against women, and specifically gender-based violence that disproportionately affects women, is an extensive human rights abuse that the EU cannot afford to overlook.

The survey asked women about their experiences of physical, sexual and psychological violence, including incidents of intimate partner violence (‘domestic violence’), and also asked about stalking, sexual harassment, and the role played by new technologies in women’s experiences of abuse. In addition, it asked about their experiences of violence in childhood. What emerges is a picture of extensive abuse that affects many women’s lives, but is systematically under-reported to the authorities. For example, one in 10 women has experienced some form of sexual violence since the age of 15, and one in 20 has been raped. Just over one in five women has experienced physical and/or sexual violence from either a current or previous partner, and just over one in 10 women indicates that they have experienced some form of sexual violence by an adult before they were 15 years old. Yet, as an illustration, only 14 % of women reported their most serious incident of intimate partner violence to the police, and 13 % reported their most serious incident of non-partner violence to the police.

There have been repeated calls over several  years from different quarters for comprehensive data on violence against women – including various Presidencies of the Council of the  EU, monitoring bodies such as the United Nations (UN) Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, and the Council of Europe. It is clear, with the publication of these results, that the time is now ripe to address violence against women on the basis of the evidence supplied by the survey for 28 countries. Future EU strategies on equality between women and men could build on the survey’s findings to address key areas of concern about women’s experiences of violence. The survey results also provide ample support for EU Member States to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention), and for the EU to explore the possibility of accession to the convention. The findings further reinforce the need to ensure implementation of existing EU measures for victims of crime, most notably through the EU Victims’ Directive. They also serve to underline the importance of targeted EU legislation and policies addressing violence against women, such as the European Protection Order and the Regulation on Mutual Recognition of Protection Measures in Civil Matters, which need to be applied in practice if they are to be effective.

Alongside responses to violence against women at the level of EU  institutions and Member States, action to combat violence against women needs to come from different quarters, including employers, health professionals and internet service providers – to name just a few. This is particularly important because many women do not report their experiences of abuse to the authorities, so that the majority of violence against women continues to be hidden and, as a result, perpetrators are not confronted. Therefore, different avenues for highlighting and combating violence against women need to be explored further. With the publication of the survey and the necessary follow-up measures by politicians and policy makers, women who have been a victim of violence and have remained silent can be encouraged to speak up. This is crucial in those countries, and among certain groups, where it is not yet widespread to openly talk about personal experiences of violence, where reporting of incidents to the authorities is low, and where violence against women is not addressed as a mainstream policy issue.

In sum, this report presents the first results from the most comprehensive survey to date at the level of the EU (and worldwide) on women’s diverse experiences of violence. It is hoped that the report’s findings – read alongside the online data explorer tool – are taken up by those women and men who can advocate and initiate change to address violence against women.

Finally, the results presented in this report were only made possible by the participation of women in the survey who gave their time to talk about very personal and difficult experiences. It was the first time many of them had spoken to anyone about their abuse. For this, the FRA would like to thank them.

Morten Kjaerum
Director



In short, here's a quick look at all of the EU countries together with the percentage of women above the age of 15 who have experienced physical or sexual violence in their life;

1. Denmark - 52 pct.
2. Finland - 47 pct.
3. Sweden - 46 pct.
4. The Netherlands - 45 pct.
5. Great Britain - 44 pct.
  France - 44 pct.
7. Latvia - 39 pct.
8. Luxembourg- 38 pct.
9. Belgium - 36 pct.
10. Germany - 35 pct.
11. Slovakia - 34 pct.
12. Estonia - 33 pct.
13. Czech Republic - 32 pct.
14. Lithuania - 31 pct.
15. Romania - 30 pct.
16. Bulgaria - 28 pct.
   Hungary - 28 pct.
18. Italy - 27 pct.
19. Ireland - 26 pct.
20. Greece - 25 pct.
21. Portugal - 24 pct.
22. Cyprus - 22 pct.
   Spain - 22 pct.
   Malta - 22 pct.
   Slovenia - 22 pct.
26. Croatia - 21 pct.
27. Austria - 20 pct.
28. Poland - 19 pct.

A place, routinely considered the happiest nation on Earth, had over half of the women answering the survey admitting to experiencing physical or sexual violence from a partner? That sounds insane.

You pretty much have to be a feminist if you are a modern person in this day. Its not just a muslim problem. Its a world problem.

Theres interesting data in the report but those figures are weirdly contrived.

They put physical and sexual violence together, and amongst the questions asked regarding physical violence are:

How often has someone:

- pushed or shoved you
- Grabbed you or pulled your hair
- Slapped you
- Threw a hard object at you


Some of those questions conflate trivial things with serious physical and sexual violence. They've also put " grabbed " (not groped) in the same level as being pulled by the hair, which I find strange.

These questions are asked going all the way back to school age. So if someone threw something at you, for example, in a school classroom you end up in these statistics?

This conflating of serious and non-serious physical violence shows up in the section about the psychological consequences of physical violence; e.g. :

-28% of respondents who were physically "assaulted" by a partner picked 0 of the psychological effects in their list, and 26% showed only one of the effects
- 43% of respondents who were physically assaulted by a non-partner picked 0 of their psychological effects, and 28% only one.
I.e. a significant proportion of these women who've been put in those statistics in the OP were psychologically unaffected by the "violence", and more further chose only one (you can look in the report yourself to try and guess which one it probably was)

If we look at the more serious forms of violence, and these are the percentages of 28 countries combined because they didn't show them country by country, the breakdown is:

- Beaten/Kicked = 10%
- Burned = 1 %
- Attempted strangling = 4%
- Cut/stabbed/shot = 1%
- Head beaten against something = 4%

In addition it's worth noting in 33% (1 in 3) of the cases of physical violence by non-partners the perpetrator, or one of the perpetrators, was female.
They did not provide the same insight for the gender of perpetrators in partner related physical violence. That's annoyed me given the colourful reputation lesbian couples have.
I also have to note that the figures for violence, in various forms (physical/psychological) is consistently significantly higher for previous partners than current partners or non-partners. I can think of legitimate reasons for why that could be, but it did trigger the realisation in my mind that in many cases this is the word of a woman against her ex, and that isn't necessarily in many cases trustworthy or objective.

11% of the overall sample for 28 countries reported sexual violence. So obviously those figures of 50+% etc presented in the OP, were inflated by rather trivial categories of physical violence (imo)
Please realise I don't think pushing and slapping, etc, is desirable behaviour, but it's what people do, a lot. For example the report also states just under half the physical violence directed at children is performed by women, and I shall assume much of that takes the form of slaps or grabbing.

I agree with some of the reports judgements:

- That there is a relationship between domestic violence and alcohol.
- People get trapped in a cycle of abuse, I.e. those who suffered abuse in childhood are more inclined to end up in relationships with abusive men.

Nevertheless most of the policies suggested were self serving, some of it seemed like nanny state on steroids stuff as well, imo. (I guess that is to be expected from people who create statistics that encompass everything from slapping to rape)

It makes very bold estimates about the total numbers of women facing violence. I'm not an expert on sampling techniques so I shall be careful about what I say: It isn't clear to me how a "random sample" of about 1500 women per country can be expected to give reliable estimates for approximately 186,000,000 people. The report claims it consulted with experts in the creation of the survey and that it is representative, so I'm just gently querying it.

In the UK, iirc, the latest government report estimated something like 2-3% of women experienced sexual assault.
I actually found a screenshot of the raw annual data (which is not the estimate for the population)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CWT_xkDWIAAwiYF.jpg

Well, I wonder how one should put my encounter with that guy who threatened me with a knife, but whom I kicked and hit faster than he obviously imagined and who then fled without actually hurting me. After all, that was "just" an attempt and I got away completely unharmed.

Why did any one threaten you with a knife in prosperous Germany may i ask?

@Adit

I have no idea. I was going home from a birtday and okay, it was a somewhat dark area. Maybe that guy wanted to have some "fun"?

But as I'm not particularly fast, I knew I couldn't outrun the guy, so I decided it was better to start an attack instead of probably be getting caught in the back when trying to escape.

"In short, here's a quick look at all of the EU countries together with the percentage of women above the age of 15 who have experienced physical or sexual violence in their life;"

What the hell is their definition of sexual violence, because when I think "sexual violence" I think rape, but there's simply no way 50% of danish women have beenn raped

Sexual violence is any sexual act or attempt to obtain a sexual act by violence or coercion, unwanted sexual comments or advances, acts to traffic a person or acts directed against a person's sexuality, regardless of the relationship to the victim.

If you add "unwanted sexual comments", then I bet about 100% of women would have experienced that... This is particularly valid if you are working in an area where normally guys dominate.

For ex, at the university, I earned my money as assistent in the university's computer centre where there were 25 or so guys and only two gals. You can imagine that there were always idiot comments given (often sexually based, too).

As a matter of fact, I bet many gals might have gotten embarrassed or so there, but I found the best way to deal with that was giving witty remarks, best when there were sufficient people around who heard them, too. That usually meant that the  guy in question tried that one time at maximum and never dared again XD

(E.g. one guy offered to sleep with me because he thought that I needed it as me working in an environment with lots of guys meant I went there because I was needy or so. My retort was "Well, you think you would be a good candidate? Let's see. . Naaawww... You know, I look for very specific things in guys, but I'm sorry, I don't think that you have it..." He asked back "So what would that be?" Me: "Well, for starters intelligence..." As half of the other computer guys were around, too, they started laughing of course and that guy never tried anything again XD)

So I really wonder if it is so easy to discern what one can actually count as "violence" there. I bet there are quite some gals who would consider clumsy proposition as like that as "violence", while I mainly find stuff like this funny and a good invitation to embarrass machos and wanna be machos.

linetty wrote:Sexual violence is any sexual act or attempt to obtain a sexual act by violence or coercion, unwanted sexual comments or advances, acts to traffic a person or acts directed against a person's sexuality, regardless of the relationship to the victim.

Sure, but if you look at DTW's post the study starts to lose a lot of credibility imo. Rapes and a guy randomly grabbing someone's butt on the dancefloor should not be treated equally.

And the "unwanted sexual comments" parts actually makes it pretty useless, as such can be found about everywhere, if you just listen.

One thing I did find frightening in the report though was the amount of women who say they were sexually assaulted before the age of 15, there is no way it's always been that bad.
Really shocked tbh. Maybe those old social conservative prudes like Judith Reisman are right about pornography after all huh

DuringTheWar wrote:One thing I did find frightening in the report though was the amount of women who say they were sexually assaulted before the age of 15, there is no way it's always been that bad.
Really shocked tbh. Maybe those old social conservative prudes like Judith Reisman are right about pornography after all huh

Isn't the age of consent below(or at) 15 for  like 20+ European countries. That probably explains a lot of them experiencing sexual violence before that age.

This whole report is shit anyways. 50% in Denmark Yeah, not any truth to that.

If a slap is physical violence, I'd think 110% of all men have been the victim of physical violence

Sexual violence and rape is a huge issue and putting it into the same cateogry with slapping, hair pulling and grabbing someone doesn't do the victims justice and do more harm than good.

I once had a girl verbally assault me and slap me some times with all her power in my face. I gave her one slap back and she started crying. If that's physical violence I almost burst into tears laughing.

Also rape shouldn't be put together with groping. I don't think I can count how many times me and my friends have been out clubbing and some girl starts groping us and touching all around. I really can't stand it and it annoys me, seems like it's socially acceptable for women to do it. Putting together such actions with rape is ridiculous just because it's a man doing it to a woman.

Typical extreme feminist double standards really.


This report is a load of shit. You end up having actual victims grouped with people who got a slap on the wrist from their great aunt when they were 6.

Tomwin Lannister wrote:Typical extreme feminist double standards really.


This report is a load of shit. You end up having actual victims grouped with people who got a slap on the wrist from their great aunt when they were 6.

TBF I still suffer from PTSD after my grandmother said I couldn't have another cookie. That's literally physically abuse.

There's a special place in hell for those who deny their fellow human beings prime snacks.

Freeza wrote:This whole report is shit anyways. 50% in Denmark Yeah, not any truth to that.

If a slap is physical violence, I'd think 110% of all men have been the victim of physical violence

Sexual violence and rape is a huge issue and putting it into the same cateogry with slapping, hair pulling and grabbing someone doesn't do the victims justice and do more harm than good.

I once had a girl verbally assault me and slap me some times with all her power in my face. I gave her one slap back and she started crying. If that's physical violence I almost burst into tears laughing.

In America even after all of what she did if you gave her a slap back, and the police were there, you would have been locked up.

I do think a balance needs to be created. The law seems to skew pretty far in one direction to cater to the historically weaker sex.

Specially those who deny those easter eggs because their instinct is to kill everyone in the store. (:

Betty La Fea wrote:

Freeza wrote:This whole report is shit anyways. 50% in Denmark Yeah, not any truth to that.

If a slap is physical violence, I'd think 110% of all men have been the victim of physical violence

Sexual violence and rape is a huge issue and putting it into the same cateogry with slapping, hair pulling and grabbing someone doesn't do the victims justice and do more harm than good.

I once had a girl verbally assault me and slap me some times with all her power in my face. I gave her one slap back and she started crying. If that's physical violence I almost burst into tears laughing.

In America even after all of what she did if you gave her a slap back, and the police were there, you would have been locked up.

I do think a balance needs to be created. The law seems to skew pretty far in one direction to cater to the historically weaker sex.

No I wouldn't it wasn't a hard slap. It was tiny. If I actually used any power on a girl I ought to be locked up, no place for that shit.

Freeza wrote:

Betty La Fea wrote:

Freeza wrote:This whole report is shit anyways. 50% in Denmark Yeah, not any truth to that.

If a slap is physical violence, I'd think 110% of all men have been the victim of physical violence

Sexual violence and rape is a huge issue and putting it into the same cateogry with slapping, hair pulling and grabbing someone doesn't do the victims justice and do more harm than good.

I once had a girl verbally assault me and slap me some times with all her power in my face. I gave her one slap back and she started crying. If that's physical violence I almost burst into tears laughing.

In America even after all of what she did if you gave her a slap back, and the police were there, you would have been locked up.

I do think a balance needs to be created. The law seems to skew pretty far in one direction to cater to the historically weaker sex.

No I wouldn't it wasn't a hard slap. It was tiny. If I actually used any power on a girl I ought to be locked up, no place for that shit.

Lol yeah you would. I've seen guys locked up for yelling at the women in public down here. You touch them you definitely would have caught a charge.

Give me one example of a tiny slap being punished. I can understand the riots in the street then. If a tiny slap to someone who slaps you gets you locked up, but shooting a black male gets you a promotion

Land of the free

Betty La Fea wrote:

DuringTheWar wrote:One thing I did find frightening in the report though was the amount of women who say they were sexually assaulted before the age of 15, there is no way it's always been that bad.
Really shocked tbh. Maybe those old social conservative prudes like Judith Reisman are right about pornography after all huh

Isn't the age of consent below(or at) 15 for  like 20+ European countries. That probably explains a lot of them experiencing sexual violence before that age.

I don't know tbh, but pushing the age limit as low as that is just destigmatising pedophillia. I mean it might not be technically peadophilia but a 14 year old is a child. No matter what way it is spun, whether it's legalised or not, a 14 yo is a child according to any meaningful definition of the word child.

It's over 15 in the UK and the UK was one of the worst. 18% in the UK, nearly 1 in 5. It's difficult to believe the problem is as widespread as that.
If it is then something is going terribly wrong in people's attitude to children.