NAADV defines domestic violence within four categories, which are:
- Physical – including any form of physical assault such as punching, pushing, kicking, biting, pulling hair, burning stabbing, and in the worst cases murder.
- Emotional – including intimidation, threats, harassment, stalking, damage to personal items and property, and allowing children to witness domestic violence.
- Sexual – including rape, sexual assault, unwanted exposure to pornography, and any form of force or coercion to commit sexual acts that are not acceptable to the person.
- Economic – including preventing someone from getting or keeping a job, not letting a person have knowledge of or access to family income (i.e. welfare benefits), taking money and/or making someone ask for money.
Here are some statistics about domestic violence and violence against women in the UK, taken from a 2007 report by the Women’s Resource Centre which collected information from a variety of resources. The full report is available here.
- The British Crime Survey of 2005 showed that 45% of women in the UK have experienced some form of domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking.
- Domestic violence has been identified as a prime cause of miscarriage or still-birth in 2005.
- In 2005, 47% of male victims of domestic violence have experienced single incidents of abuse, compared to only 27% of female victims in the UK.
- Two women are killed every week by current or former partners.
- Although there are estimated to be 500,000 domestic violence related calls to the police annually, only around 7,000 incidents (1.4%) result in a prosecution.
- The cost of domestic violence is estimated to be £22.9 billion per year.
- An estimated 500 women every year experience violence from a partner and cannot access Housing Benefit and other support, including places in refuges, because they are subject to immigration control.
- 40% of all homeless women stated that domestic violence contributed to their homelessness.
