World’s largest survey on violence against women by EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) 10:38am 5th Mar, 2014   The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) has published today a report that presents the results of the world’s largest survey on violence against women.    The report, entitled Violence against women: an EU-wide survey, contains findings from interviews with 42,000 women across all 28 EU Member States. Women were asked about their experiences of physical, sexual and psychological violence, childhood victimisation, sexual harassment and stalking, including experiences of abuse on the internet and other new media platforms.    The survey findings demonstrate that violence against women is an extensive human rights abuse that must be combated with all the means at our disposal.    As the report shows, a wide variety of groups need to act, from employers through health professionals to internet service providers.    The Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) makes a number of proposals to support policy makers in introducing and implementing measures to prevent and respond to violence against women, including:    •Ratifying the Council of Europe’s Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, ensuring an approach that takes all forms of violence into account, as well as responding to its consequences    •Reinforcing a victim-centred and rights-oriented approach to victims of violence against women at the EU and Member State level that includes the development and improvement of specialist support for victims of sexual violence    •Developing EU and Member State policies and national action plans to combat violence against women on the basis of evidence that draws directly on women’s experiences of violence, as the majority of incidents remain unreported and therefore invisible.    The survey shows that policymakers need to recognise the extent of violence against women, and ensure that responses meet the needs and rights of all victims of violence against women in practice and not just on paper.    “These survey figures simply cannot and should not be ignored. FRA’s survey shows that physical, sexual and psychological violence against women is an extensive human rights abuse in all EU Member States,” said FRA Director Morten Kjaerum.    “The enormity of the problem is proof that violence against women does not just impact a few women only – it impacts on society every day. Therefore, policy makers, civil society and frontline workers need to review measures to tackle all forms of violence against women no matter where it takes place. Measures tackling violence against women need to be taken to a new level now.”    The survey asked women about their experiences of physical, sexual and psychological violence, including domestic violence. Questions were also asked about incidents of stalking, sexual harassment, and the role played by new technologies in women’s experiences of abuse. In addition, the survey asked about respondents’ experiences of violence in childhood.    The survey shows that policymakers need to recognise the extent of violence against women, and ensure that responses meet the needs and rights of all victims of violence against women in practice and not just on paper.    “These survey figures simply cannot and should not be ignored. FRA’s survey shows that physical, sexual and psychological violence against women is an extensive human rights abuse in all EU Member States,” said FRA Director Morten Kjaerum.    “The enormity of the problem is proof that violence against women does not just impact a few women only – it impacts on society every day. Therefore, policy makers, civil society and frontline workers need to review measures to tackle all forms of violence against women no matter where it takes place. Measures tackling violence against women need to be taken to a new level now.”    The survey asked women about their experiences of physical, sexual and psychological violence, including domestic violence. Questions were also asked about incidents of stalking, sexual harassment, and the role played by new technologies in women’s experiences of abuse. In addition, the survey asked about respondents’ experiences of violence in childhood.    Drawing on the survey responses, some of the key findings show that:    •33% of women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence since the age of 15. That corresponds to 62 million women.    •22% have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by a partner.    •5% of all women have been raped. Almost one in 10 women who have experienced sexual violence by a non-partner, indicate that more than one perpetrator was involved in the most serious incident.    •43% have experienced some form of psychological violence by either a current or a previous partner, such as public humiliation; forbidding a woman to leave the house or locking her up; forcing her to watch pornography; and threats of violence.    •33% have childhood experiences of physical or sexual violence at the hands of an adult. 12% had childhood experiences of sexual violence, of which half were from men they did not know. These forms of abuse typically involve an adult exposing their genitals or touching the child’s genitals or breasts.    •18% of women have experienced stalking since the age of 15 and 5% in the 12 months prior to the interview. This corresponds to 9 million women. 21% of women who have experienced stalking said that it lasted for over 2 years.    •11% of women have experienced inappropriate advances on social websites or have been subjected to sexually explicit emails or text (SMS) messages. 20% of young women (18-29) have been victims of such cyberharassment.    •55% of women have experienced some form of sexual harassment. 32% of all victims of sexual harassment said the perpetrator was a boss, colleague or customer.    •67% did not report the most serious incident of partner violence to the police or any other organisation.    The full and summary reports, related communication material in all EU languages are available on the FRA website.    Data is accessible online via a data visualisation tool on the FRA website, where responses to the survey questions can be broken down according to topic, country, age of respondents, and other variables.    http://fra.europa.eu/en/press-release/2014/violence-against-women-every-day-and-everywhere Visit the related web page
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