2020 WBG Briefing: Violence against women and girls (VAWG)

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Key points: 

• Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) includes physical, sexual, psychological, emotional and financial abuse, stalking, and harassment and coercion, forced marriage, so-called honour-based violence and female genital mutilation, child sex abuse, modern slavery, trafficking, pornography and online abuse.
• 20% of women and 4% of men have suffered sexual assault, including attempts, since age 16, equivalent to an estimated 3.4 million women and 631,000 men. ^[1]
• More than 1 in 4 women will experience domestic abuse during her lifetime[2]: that is 1.3 million women under 60 in the last year alone. [3]
• Much of this violence is invisible: 83% of victims of partner abuse did not report it to the police.[4] 
• The Government’s VAWG strategy is not backed with sufficient funding for services for survivors, or victims’ families, or for preventive interventions to end VAWG.
• In addition to Government commitment of £100m to supporting the VAWG strategy announced in 2017 Spring Spending Review, a further commitment of £24m over the next three years has been made to support services for all survivors of sexual violence, including men and boys. This compares to the total cost of domestic violence in England and Wales alone of £66bn annually, and sexual offending costs of £12.2 billion per year.

[1] Sexual offences in England and Wales: year ending March 2017, ONS, 2018 https://bit.ly/2C0Y83y

[2] ONS, 2018, Domestic abuse: findings from the Crime Survey for England and Wales: year ending March 2018 https://bit.ly/34cTZp8

[3] ONS, 2018, Domestic abuse: findings from the Crime Survey for England and Wales: year ending March 2018 https://bit.ly/34cTZp8

of the 2 million adults who suffered domestic abuse in the last year, 695,000 of these were men. Figures for year ending March 2018. A new report will be available in November 2019.

[4]ONS, 2018, Domestic abuse in England and Wales: year ending March 2018, https://bit.ly/2BYEC7V

View and download our full briefing here.