Eliminating Violence Against Women in Europe The FRA s EU-wide Survey on VAW Selected results relating to health Dr. Jo Goodey Head of Freedoms & Justice Research Department
Background EPSCO Council conclusions 8 March 2010 on the Eradication of Violence Against Women Despite the progress achieved in recent years, there is still a lack of timely, reliable, accurate and comparable data, both at national and EU level, and there has still been no detailed EU-level study on violence against women. This limits understanding of the real extent of such violence and impedes the further development of national strategies and actions and an efficient response by the EU. 2
Existing surveys and official data National surveys limited comparability Council of Europe Stocktaking Study UN Secretary-General s database on VAW International surveys limited coverage of EU Member States International Violence Against Women Survey (IVAWS) WHO Multi-country study on Women s Health and Domestic Violence Official administrative/criminal justice data Significant improvements needed across many EU Member States 3
FRA survey on VAW Objectives To produce primary data Reliable and comparable data on women s experiences of violence For the first time covering all of the EU To produce data with policy utility How can data assist the development of policies/action to address VAW? At EU and MS level and across different fields e.g. data to be read alongside CoE s Istanbul Convention 4
The FRA VAW survey 28 EU Member States In total, interviews with over 42,000 women 18 November 2010 5 5
Survey design Random (probability) sample of women 18 years of age and older Respondent characteristics collected: age, education, employment, self-identified ethnicity or immigrant background etc. One respondent per household Face-to-face interviews Average length of each interview 50 mins Based on a standardised questionnaire Female interviewers with specialised training 6
Survey content in brief Physical, sexual and psychological violence Violence in the home, workplace & elsewhere Violence by partners and non-partners New or newly recognised forms of violence included; e.g. stalking, harassment, new technologies Rights awareness, knowledge of services Victimisation over a lifetime and in last 12 months Experiences of repeat victimisation Victimisation in childhood 7
Survey content (cont.) Consequences injuries, time off work Which services were contacted - if any (police, women s shelter, victim support, health care, etc.)? Satisfaction with the assistance received Reasons for not contacting the police Reasons for not contacting other services What kind of help would have been useful? Awareness of existence of support organisations 8
Use of services Women who contacted an organisation or service as a result of the most serious incident of sexual violence by a partner since the age of 15 in EU-28 (%) Doctor, health centre or other health Police Legal service/ lawyer Hospital Social services Women's shelter Another service/ organisation Victim support organisation Church/faith-based organisation 4% 4% 5% 6% 7% 12% 15% 15% 22% 0 5 10 15 20 25 9
Contacting anyone about the most serious incident since the age of 15 (% of victims) Partner violence - physical Partner violence - sexual 1% 32% 31% Respondent contacted the police or other services Talked to somebody else 32% 39% Did not talk to anyone 36% No answer 28% 10
Role of doctors Acceptable if doctors routinely ask women who have certain injuries, whether they have been caused by violence? 8% 5% 87% Yes No Don't know 11
Injuries sustained as a result of the most serious incident of partner violence since the age of 15 (EU-28) Sexual partner violence 29% 17% 3% 45% 6% Physical partner violence 35% 11% 1% 47% 6% 0 20 40 60 80 100 1 2-3 4 or more No injuries No answer 12
Partner violence during pregnancy Of those women who experienced violence by their current partner and were pregnant during this relationship 20% experienced violence by their partner whilst pregnant 13
Planned outputs Beginning of March 2014 Comprehensive main results report Summary report + factsheet Technical report Access to the results using a data visualisation tool on the FRA website (interactive maps, graphs etc.) Longer-term plan to make the data more widely available Handbook for victim support services how to use the data 14
Thank you fra.europa.eu joanna.goodey@fra.europa.eu sami.nevala@fra.europa.eu 15