Women’s Aid respond to update from the Office for National Statistics on the redevelopment of questions around domestic abuse in the Crime Survey

Sarika Seshadri, Head of Research and Evaluation at Women’s Aid, said:

“Today, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have published an update on the redevelopment of the questions on domestic abuse that are included in the Crime Survey for England and Wales. The purpose of developing new question was to align the questions better with the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 and allow for a more detail abuse profile, using measures of both behaviour and impact. Concerningly, however the ONS have published prevalence data in isolation of impact, which is misrepresenting the realities of domestic abuse.

The data that has been released on prevalence alone underestimates the asymmetry of abuse when it comes to gender and, as noted by the ONS, does not capture coercive control, which is one of the most commonly experienced forms of domestic abuse. To omit coercive control, which was criminalised almost 10 years ago, overlooks the experiences of countless survivors.

These updated statistics must be seen as trial outputs are should not be used for policy or decision making. Women’s Aid wants to reiterate the importance of future updates including data on both behaviour and impact to minimise the risk of this data misinforming and being misused.”