A recent report indicates that one in four adults in England and Wales are likely to have experienced domestic abuse at some point since the age of 16 – a higher proportion than previously thought, new research suggests.
The figure is greater for women, at nearly one in three, while for men it is closer to one in five.
The new estimates have been produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and are the first to use an improved method for measuring the prevalence of domestic abuse among the population.
A new set of questions has been added to the ONS’s long-running Crime Survey for England and Wales to better capture a wider range of abuse types and behaviours. Now, questions about health abuse and forced marriage are included as well as the recent changes in the law regarding coercive and controlling behaviour and economic abuse.
The new estimates suggest 30.3% of women and 21.7% of men surveyed in this period had experienced domestic abuse at some point since the age of 16, equivalent to 7.4 million and 5.1 million people respectively.
What are the new categories?
Health abuse includes anything from depriving a person of daily essentials, such as food and sleep, to forcing someone to terminate pregnancy or denying someone medical assistance.
Marital status-related abuse includes forced marriage and the prevention of marrying someone of your choice.
Economic abuse can take the form of someone deliberately getting a person into debt or preventing them from getting a job.
*Coercive control is when someone uses a pattern of abusive behaviours over time that hurt, humiliate, isolate, frighten, or threaten another person in order to control or dominate them.
We see these new questions as a positive step in better understanding domestic abuse and providing vital information for our own team and our partner agencies to improve outcomes and support for victims in South Liverpool.
In developing the new questions, the ONS worked with a consortium led by the Centre for Gender and Violence Research at the University of Bristol, that also involved the College of Policing, the Women’s Aid Federation of England, Men’s Advice Line, Imkaan and Welsh Women’s Aid.
*While the updated questions are better aligned with the offence of coercive and controlling behaviour, it is still not possible to separate out an estimate for victims of this offence, the ONS said.