Women’s Aid responds to the Office for National Statistics’ Crime Survey data on domestic abuse, sexual assault and stalking 

Sarah Davidge, Head of Research and Evaluation at Women’s Aid, said:  

“This is a poignant year for crime data as it relates to domestic abuse and wider violence against women and girls (VAWG), as the Government is working towards its pledge of halving VAWG over the next decade, and is due to announce its new VAWG strategy this autumn. 

 

“Today the ONS has released a new combined measure of the prevalence of domestic abuse, sexual assault and stalking from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW). The development of this measure provides a snapshot of overall victimisation in crimes heavily experienced by women and girls. It is clearly a step toward a more comprehensive overview of these crimes and reflects the government’s commitment to ending VAWG.

 

“Although prevalence measures such as these can enable us to better identify the overall proportion of victims, they do not consider the number of times each person was victimised. We know that women encounter higher rates of repeat victimisation, are more likely to be subject to coercive and controlling behaviour and be seriously harmed or killed than male victims. Therefore, prevalence measures can underestimate the gender asymmetry of these crimes.

 

“It is also important to recognise that aggregating these different experiences of VAWG risks obscuring the full impact of these crimes on women. When presented as a single percentage, the unique prevalence, severity, and patterns of abuse—particularly those disproportionately affecting women—can become less visible. We are concerned that the way in which the questions were asked for the new measure could mask a higher proportion of female victims who experience both domestic abuse and non-domestic abuse related crimes.

 

“Women’s Aid has been part of a project led by University of Bristol over the past few years to redevelop the questions on domestic abuse in the CSEW, data from these questions will be published in the autumn. The figures released today should be read alongside these abuse profiles, to give a more accurate picture of this awful crime and how it affects women and children.”