The impact of domestic abuse

Poverty 

• Women in poverty are particularly likely to experience the most extensive violence and abuse in their lives. One research report found that 14% of women in poverty have faced extensive violence and abuse, compared to women not in poverty (6%) (from a sample of 1,185 women in poverty and 2,884 women not in poverty) (McManus & Scott with Sosenko, 2016). 

Black and minoritised survivors 

• A survey of women using specialist BMER (Black, Minority Ethnic and Refugee) domestic abuse services found that 96% reported experiencing psychological, emotional and verbal abuse, 72% had experienced physical violence and 30% had experienced attempted and/or threats of murder from the perpetrator(s) (Thiara and Roy, 2012, p.10).  

• Some BMER women are at higher than usual risks of repeat victimisation, and face extra barriers to reporting abuse and to seeking help. For example, 36.6% of women supported by the No Woman Turned Away project in 2022 had no recourse to public funds (Women’s Aid, 2023b). Two fifths of the women supported by the project were from BME backgrounds (40.2%), reflecting the barriers that BME women face when attempting to access places of safety (Women’s Aid, 2023b). 

• Some Black and minoritised women face specific pressures from her family and community not to report abuse, as this can bring shame on the woman herself, as well as the perpetrator and extended family. They may also face acute cultural pressure to remain in a marriage whatever the cost. Many Black and minoritised survivors may have a deep distrust and fear of the police due to racism and over-policing in their communities. These fears extend to very real and valid concerns regarding data sharing between police and immigration enforcement for women with insecure immigration status (Centre for Women’s Justice and Imkaan, 2023). 

Older women 

• Older women are underrepresented in domestic abuse service use, despite evidence to suggest that they experience domestic abuse at similar rates to younger women. It is estimated that at least one in six older people experience some form of violence or abuse by a partner, family member or carer each year, and official statistics on homicide show that women aged 75 and over are disproportionately victimised (Bows, 2019). Recent analysis found that approximately one in four (25%) domestic homicides in England and Wales between 2010 and 2015 involved a victim aged 60 and over. Among these, the majority of victims were female (67%) and the majority of perpetrators were male (81%) (Bows, 2019). 

• Older women were underrepresented in national On Track data for 2022-23. Only 4.5% of service users in the total sample were 61 or over (Women’s Aid, 2024).  

Pregnancy 

• One study found that 40-60% of women experiencing domestic abuse had been abused while pregnant (Department of Health, 2005). Research on the prevalence of domestic abuse among all pregnant women varies in its results, with estimates ranging from 0.9 to 20.1%. Smaller scale studies have produced prevalence estimates towards the higher end of the range; one survey disseminated to 500 women at an antenatal booking clinic in a north of England hospital found that the prevalence of domestic abuse in the cohort of pregnant women was 17%. Comparable research undertaken at an antenatal booking clinic in Ireland produced a prevalence rate of 12.9%. The wide variation between estimates reflects differences in research design and population sampled. In addition, few studies have included emotional abuse in their definition of domestic abuse (BMA Board of Science, 2007 updated 2014). 

Disability 

• Mental, physical and sexual cruelty can also be inflicted on women with disabilities, including learning disabilities (McCarthy et al, 2025, p.11). Disabled women can experience additional barriers to accessing justice and support. One study found that women with physical and learning disabilities were often not believed or were ignored when they disclosed abuse (Mandl et al, 2014).  

• In the year ending March 2023, an estimated 12.4% of disabled women experienced domestic abuse. This compares with an estimated 4% of non-disabled women (ONS, 2023).  

• An examination of the results of the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey revealed that 75% of women in the ‘extensive physical and sexual violence’ group were not receiving either medication or counselling for a mental health problem at the time of the survey. This is despite ‘indications of very high levels of mental ill health’ in this group. 36% of women in the ‘extensive physical and sexual violence’ group had attempted suicide. In the same group, women were more than twice as likely to have an alcohol problem and eight times more likely to be drug dependent than women with little experience of violence and abuse (the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey is a large survey of a representative sample of men and women of all ages, resident in private households) (Scott, and McManus, 2016). 

• Crime survey data for the year ending March 2017 to the year ending March 2020 found that of women who were victims of rape or assault by penetration (including attempts) since the age of 16 years, 63% reported mental or emotional problems and 10% reported that they had tried to kill themselves as a result (ONS, 2021). 

• 55.8% of women survivors of domestic abuse responding to the Crime Survey of England and Wales 2018-19 reported sustained non-physical effects of the abuse (for example, mental or emotional problems as an effect of the abuse) (ONS, 2019).  

• Analysis conducted for Refuge and the University of Warwick showed that almost a quarter (24%) of a sample of 3,500 of Refuge’s clients reported having felt suicidal, and 86% reported feeling depressed (Aitken and Munro, 2018). 

• Of the 39,698 survivors supported between 1st April 2022 to the 31st of March 2023 in On Track, 50.6% of those in Refuge and 41.5% of those in Community Based Services had support needs around mental health (Women’s Aid, 2024).  

Abusive and unhealthy relationships can impact us emotionally, physically, and mentally. They leave us feeling helpless, insecure, broken. Recognising the red flags can be tricky, especially if we’ve got so used to them.

These relationships can turn our social and emotional well-being upside down. Abusive partners will try to cut us off from our friends and family, leave us feeling totally alone and out of touch. They are essentially cutting us off from our support system, when it can already be hard to talk about our relationships, as we don’t want our friends and family to dislike our partners.

Isolation in an abusive relationship isn’t just about your partner outright forbidding you from seeing your friends and family. It can be much more subtle and sinister. Here are a few ways your partner might be isolating you without you even realising it.

They might get “jealous” of your friends and family and ask you to stop seeing them or to block or unfollow them to make themselves feel better. They might convince you that a friend or family member doesn’t treat you well, or like you, and pressure you to cut ties with them. They might decide they no longer want to talk to your friend or family member because of some issue, even create a conflict, making it harder for you to see that person. They might refuse to come with you, not give you a lift, or make you feel guilty for seeing them by suggesting you’re not supporting your partner if you do. Your partner might say you’re free to go out and see your friends, but when you do, they turn up or spend the entire time messaging you. They might pick a fight with you when you get home – to the point that you might feel like it’s easier to cut contact with your friends instead.

Your phone and social media are also an opportunity for an abuser, making you feel like you can’t communicate with your friends or family freely or privately. They might control your phone usage by limiting the time you can spend on it, monitoring your messages and calls, or convincing you to share your social media passwords.

Isolation is intentional. Without your support system, you might find yourself relying more on your partner for support and validation.

Analysis conducted for Refuge and the University of Warwick showed that almost a quarter (24%) of a sample of 3,500 of Refuge’s clients reported having felt suicidal, and 86% reported feeling depressed (Aitken and Munro, 2018).

Remember, your friends and family are there for you! Make sure you are reaching out for support when you need it.

You may also want to learn more in Deserve To Be Heard, a flagship campaign we launched in 2021, which aimed to raise awareness of the devastating impact of domestic abuse on the mental health of women and their children.

Alongside survivors, our federation members, parliamentary champions, and community campaigners, we have raised awareness of the devastating impact of domestic abuse on the mental health of women and children and worked to secure a more supportive policy environment and funding for essential mental health support.

We know that specialist services – particularly those led ‘by and for’ Black and minoritised women, d/Deaf and disabled women and LBT+ women – are best placed to deliver the long-term healing needed to support women through the trauma of abuse. Throughout the campaign, we highlighted the importance of dedicated funding for these specialist women’s services.

We are pleased to share some of our proudest campaign achievements with you. Read our Deserve To Be Heard impact report here.

• A 2018 survey of over 5,000 LGBT people in Great Britain found that more than one in ten respondents (11%) reported experiencing domestic abuse from a partner in the last year. This includes 13% of bisexual women and 10% of lesbians, 12% of bisexual men and 7% of gay men. One in five trans and non-binary people had experienced domestic abuse from a partner, and 16% of trans women had experienced domestic abuse from a partner in the last year (Bachmann and Gooch, 2018).  

• A report based on a casework dataset of 626 LGBT+ survivors (65% male, 32% female and 2% non-binary) who received support from Galop’s domestic abuse advocacy service between 2014 and 2017 states that in 79% of cases, the survivor had experienced abuse from an intimate partner. 71% of individual perpetrators were identified as male and 29% as female. 95% of gay men, 60% of trans women, and 75% of trans men disclosed abuse from a male perpetrator (Magic and Kelley, 2018). 

• On Track national data from the year 2022-23 relating to female service users showed that 3.1% of service users overall (1,230) identified as LGBQ+, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, asexual, or pansexual (Women’s Aid, 2024).  

• Economic abuse can be a significant barrier to leaving an abuser. 52% of women respondents to a Women’s Aid/TUC study who were still living with their abuser said they could not afford to leave because they had no money of their own (Howard and Skipp, 2015, p.40). 

• Nearly a third (31.9%) of respondents to the Women’s Aid Survivor Voice Survey 2018 said their access to money during the relationship was controlled by the perpetrator and over two-fifths of respondents to the survey described their partner refusing to pay his share or taking money from her (Women’s Aid, 2019). 

• On Track national data from the year 2022-23 relating to female service users showed that 30.2% of service users overall had experienced financial abuse. This included 29.2% of those in CBS services and 52.6% of service users in refuge (Women’s Aid, 2024). 

• Perpetrators of domestic abuse now routinely use technology and social media to control and instil fear in those they victimise. 15% of women in refuge services had experienced surveillance/harassment online or through social media by their abuser during 2022-23 (Women’s Aid, 2024).  

• Conviction data for image based sexual abuse (commonly referred to as ‘revenge pornography’) show that of the 341 prosecutions commenced in the year ending March 2020, 82% (278) were flagged as being domestic abuse-related (ONS, 2020). 

Find out more about online and digital abuse here.  

• Domestic abuse cost society an estimated £66 to £78 billion in the year ending March 2017. The largest proportion of this estimated cost relates to physical and emotional harms experienced by survivors, particularly emotional harms, which represent a large majority of the overall costs. Other costs include lost output, costs to health and victim services, police costs and legal (civil and criminal) costs. The figure of £66 to £78 billion is likely to be an under-estimate (Home Office, 2019). 

• The economic case is clear for the UK Government to commit to investing £427 million per year, as a minimum, to fund specialist domestic abuse services for women and their children across England. As an economic analysis commissioned by Women’s Aid shows, for every pound invested in domestic abuse support services we will see a saving to the public purse of at least £9 (Women’s Aid, 2023c). 

• In 2011 gender-based violence cost the EU an estimated 228 billion Euros, which represents 1.8% of EU Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (Nogai, 2013, p.24).  

We know that many women who face domestic abuse already experience economic control by the abuser and this is often exacerbated during times of economic crisis, making it even harder for women to escape abuse.  

In a 2022 survey, Women’s Aid found two thirds (66%) of survivors told us that abusers were using the cost-of- living increase and concerns about financial hardship as a tool for coercive control (Women’s Aid, 2022). 

• A fifth of survivors (21%) told us their abuser used the crisis to justify controlling their access to money. Almost three quarters (73%) of women living with and having financial links with the abuser said that the cost-of-living crisis had either prevented them from leaving or made it harder for them to leave (Women’s Aid, 2022).  

The Domestic Abuse Report 2024 showed that the rising cost-of-living is continuing to have a wide-spread impact on survivors and services.  

• Services reported that often survivors did not have enough money to pay for essentials needed for them and/or their children (79.8%) and needed to access foodbanks (78.8%). A concerning 62.5% of services also reported that survivors had been unable to afford to leave the perpetrator (Women’s Aid, 2024). 

• Organisations reported that staff were struggling with increased and more challenging workloads (63.5%) due to increases in the cost-of-living and were struggling to recruit for vacant roles at the salaries they can pay (57.7%), with some losing staff who needed to move to higher paid roles elsewhere (48.1%) (Women’s Aid, 2024).  
• Around a third (32.7%) of organisations reported that they had received some financial relief related to the rising cost-of-living which was able to mitigate some of these issues for survivors, including the Home Office Emergency Fund, which was distributed by Women’s Aid (Women’s Aid, 2024) 

Femicide is generally defined as the murder of women because they are women, though some definitions include any murders of women or girls. 

• Homicide Index data from the year ending March 2020 and the year ending March 2022 showed that 67.3% of victims of domestic homicide were female (249 women) (ONS, 2023). 

• Of the 249 female domestic homicide victims, the suspect was male in 241 cases. In the majority of female domestic homicides, the suspect was a male partner or ex-partner (74.7%), whereas in the majority of male domestic homicides, the suspect was a male family member (66.1%) (ONS, 2023).  

• The total number of women killed by a partner/ex-partner over this three-year period was 186. All of the suspects were male. This means that over a three-year period, on average, at least one woman a week was killed by a male partner/ex-partner (ONS, 2023). 

• In previous years, this average has been around 1.5 women per week, however homicide figures vary year on year and therefore a longer-term analysis is required to understand whether this represents a trend, and the impact of Covid-19 on these figures. In addition, it is clearly important that homicides not be reduced to trends as each individual number represents the death of a woman. It is critically important when looking at these statistics to highlight the life of each woman, and remember the grief and devastation caused by each tragic death. 

• In the year ending March 2023, almost half (45%, or 70 women) of adult female homicide victims in England and Wales were killed in a domestic homicide. Of these 70 female victims, all but one was killed by a male suspect (ONS, 2024). 

Coercive and controlling behaviour is at the heart of domestic abuse and has been a specific criminal offence since the end of 2015. Coercive control is defined in statutory guidance as “an intentional pattern of behaviour which takes place over time, in order for one individual to exert power, control or coercion over another” (Home Office, 2023, p. 13). These are abusive actions designed to limit a person’s freedom and autonomy and to dictate most aspects of a survivor’s everyday life (Kelly et al, 2014; Myhill and Hohl, 2016; Schechter, 1982; Stark, 2007; Women’s Aid, 2016). 

• There were 43,774 offences of coercive control recorded by the police in England and Wales (excluding Devon and Cornwall) in the year ending March 2023. This is an increase from 41,626 in the year ending March 2022, and 33,954 in the year ending March 2021 (ONS, 2023b). 

• There were 811 defendant proceedings and 566 offenders convicted of controlling or coercive behaviour in the year ending March 2023 in England and Wales (where controlling or coercive behaviour was the principal offence) (ONS, 2023c). 

• Almost all those convicted for controlling or coercive behaviour in England and Wales in the year ending March 2023 were male – 553 out of 566 (97.7%) (ONS, 2023c). Although the ONS publication does not give the sex of the victims, we know from other research (as below) that the majority of victims are likely to be women.  

• One study of crime survey data found that women are far more likely than men to be the victims of coercive controlling behaviour abuse that involves ongoing degradation and frightening threats – two key elements of coercive control. Working within the limitations of the current crime survey questions, the study found that among intimate personal violence victims who had experienced only one abusive relationship since the age of 16, almost a third (30%, n = 791) of the abuse reported by female respondents could be classified as coercive control in this way, contrasting with only 6% (n = 52) of the abuse reported by male respondents (Myhill, 2015).  

• In a survey of over 450 domestic abuse practitioners, 62% said they believe there needs to be improved understanding of the traits and techniques of coercive and controlling behaviour among frontline officers (HMIC, 2015). 

• In 2015, three quarters of forces (34 forces) included coercive control as part of their domestic abuse training (HMIC, 2015). In 2019, 14 forces had adopted the Domestic Abuse Matters training programme (HMIC, 2019). 

• Analysis of Merseyside Police domestic abuse data found that 95% of coercive control victims were women and 74% of perpetrators were men. 76% of coercive control cases happened within an intimate partner context. The study found that common abusive behaviours used in coercive control included “…use of technology (such as phone trackers, controlling social media usage, barrage of text messages or monitoring phone usage), sexual coercion, monitoring behaviours, isolation, threats, financial abuse, deprivation (depriving access to support) and physical violence (63% of coercive control cases featured reports of physical violence)” (Barlow et al, 2018). 

Find out more about coercive control here.