UK Statistics on Domestic Violence
special thanks to Tara Godson at the Body Shop UK for the information
FYI: The Body Shop will take on the issue of Domestic Violence as one of their campaigns later this
year. Stay in touch with the Body Shop and their worthy efforts by visiting the Body Shop home page. Also check out the Canada Body Shop page (warning: big graphic)
Statistics
- 1 in 4 women may experience violence in their relationships with men
(Women's Aid Federation [England] report, 1992)
- Severe, repeated and systematic violence occurs in at least 5 of every
hundred marriages in Britain;
Between 40 and 45% of murdered women are killed by thir male partners;
Between 1 and 2 women are murdered by their male partners every week;
more
than 25% of all violent crime reported to the police is domestic violence of
men against women, making it the second most common violent crime;
(Domestic Violence - Action for Change, G. Hague & E. Malos, 1993)
- 100,000 women per year seek treatment in London for violent injuries
received in the home (Punching Judy, BBC1 TV programme, 1989)
- 30,000 women and children stay in refuges in the UK every year;
In Wolverhampton, UK, 1 in 6 women had suffered some form of domestic abuse;
One quarter of all assaults are in domestic circumstances (Domestic Violence
- Report of an Inter-Agency Working Party, 1992)
- In Edinburgh, Scotland, out of 3020 cases of violence reported to the
police, three quarters of those were wife assault);
One of the main problems experienced by the refuge movement (in the UK) is
both the inadequacy and uncertainty of funding (Domestic Violence - Home
Office Research Study 107)
- Some women's refuges receive no grant aid at all;
London Women's Aid could only find space in a women's refuge for 40% of the
5,000 women who came to them for help in 1990;
A refuge in the Southwest of England was only able to house 142 of the 490
women who were referred to them in desperate need of help;
In a local authority with a population of over a million people, there are
currently just 19 refuge spaces (Domestic Violence - Action for Change, G.
Halos & E. Malos, 1993)
- 20% of refuges have no full time staff at all;
approximately 35% of the refuge places deemed a minimum requirement (for
England) in 1975 are in existence in 1994. And recent studies have
calculated that the estimated required number of refuge places should be
substantially increased: the demand is almost double that recommended in the
mid-seventies;
approximately 129 volunteer hours go into running a refuge every month
(Funding Refuge Services, Mog Ball, 1994)