European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE)
European Institute for Gender Equality, Gedimino pr. 16, LT-01103 Vilnius, Lithuania
+370 5 215 7444
19/10/2020
The European Institute of Gender Equality (EIGE) Gender Statistics Database developed 13 fully defined indicators on Intimate Partner Violence. These indicators were developed in order to support Member States in meeting the requirements of the Victims’ Rights Directive and the Istanbul Convention, and to guide data collection by the police and justice sectors across the EU. The full report can be accessed via this link.
This national administrative data collection covers these 13 indicators and is the sole effort to collate comparable data on this form of gender-based violence across the EU.
Among these 13 indicators, nine indicators focus on data collected by the police on different forms of Intimate Partner Violence, rape and femicide, and contain different units of measurement (e.g. victims, offenders). The four remaining indicators focus on justice data on judicial measures against Intimate Partner Violence.
Indicators based on administrative data from the police are as follows:
Indicators based on administrative data from justice sources are as follows:
Due to differences in methodology and definition, availability of comparable data that conforms to EIGE’s definition is limited. In this study, data is considered comparable when:
Comparable data that does adhere to EIGE’s definitions is presented in the data table in the Gender Statistics Database. The available (non-comparable) national administrative data are collected and recorded separately in Excel files for each of the 27 EU Member States and the three devolved administrations of the UK (England and Wales (in one file), Scotland, Northern Ireland). The Excel files contain data for each indicator (where available), as well as relevant metadata and a link to the source. Furthermore, a technical report collating metadata for all available comparable and non-comparable data is forthcoming (due in 2020)
No classification system applies. For statistical concepts and definitions, and for statistical units, refer to the sections below. These will also be covered in the forthcoming technical report (due in 2020).
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Definitions of offences may differ across countries and are included in the Excel files where available. EIGE maintains the following general definitions, as outlined in its glossary:
Intimate-partner violence (IPV): “A pattern of assaultive and coercive behaviours, including physical, sexual and psychological acts, as well as economic coercion, which adults or adolescents may use against their intimate partners without their consent.” It includes “Any act of physical, sexual, psychological or economic violence that occurs between former or current spouses or partners, whether or not the perpetrator shares or has shared the same residence with the victim.”
The following offences can be categorised into the four types of Intimate Partner Violence:
As long as these offences were committed within an intimate relationship between the perpetrator (man) and the victim (woman).
Rape: “Any non-consensual vaginal, anal or oral penetration of the body of another person where the penetration is of a sexual nature, with any bodily part or with an object, as well as any other non-consensual acts of a sexual nature by the use of coercion, violence, threats, duress, ruse, surprise or other means, regardless of the perpetrator’s relationship to the victim.”
Femicide: "The killing of a woman by an intimate partner and the death of a woman as a result of a practice that is harmful to women."
Protection order: "Fast legal remedy to protect persons at risk of any form of violence by prohibiting, restraining or prescribing certain behaviour by the perpetrator."
Please consult EIGE’s report “Indicators on intimate partner violence and rape for the police and justice sectors” for more information on the indicators and their definitions.
Statistical units vary by indicator. The following statistical units are included in the 13 indicators defined by EIGE:
Persons:
This statistical unit includes the number of suspects and offenders who came into formal contact with the police. It also includes the number of victims.
The following indicators report on women victims:
The following indicator reports on men perpetrators
Offences:
This is a statistical unit used by the police. In practice, this means that for each contravention of an article of criminal law (i.e. the offence) - even when happening in the same criminal event – the offences may be recorded and counted separately. A single case may include multiple offences, and an investigation may include multiple cases.
The following indicator report on offences:
Cases:
This unit is used at the later stages in the criminal justice system i.e. during prosecution and/or conviction or sentencing of (suspected) perpetrators. A case might refer to a single person who is being prosecuted or to the criminal proceedings, which may include more than one person.
The following indicator reports on applied for and granted protection orders:
The following indicator reports on prosecutions:
The following indicators report on sentences:
Please consult EIGE’s report “Indicators on intimate partner violence and rape for the police and justice sectors” for more information on the indicators and their definitions.
For administrative data, the statistical population for each statistic is the complete register (all the relevant records).
Data cover the 27 EU Member States as well as the three devolved administrations of the UK. For each country, there is one Excel file covering 13 indicators. Data for the United Kingdom where data are presented in separate files for England and Wales (in one file), Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Administrative data on Intimate Partner Violence have been collected for years 2014 to 2018. However, data availability varies across countries (see section on completeness as well as the forthcoming technical report, due to be published in 2020).
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Absolute value of the relevant statistical unit (see section on statistical units).
Currently, there is no fixed update schedule for national administrative data on Intimate Partner Violence.
No legal acts are applicable. However, two separate legal instruments provide a broader mandate for countries to collect data on violence against women:
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There is no fixed release calendar. Data have been collected in 2017 and 2019 and published in 2019 via the EIGE Gender Statistics Database.
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Data are disseminated to all types of users simultaneously via the EIGE Gender Statistics database.
There is no fixed frequency of dissemination.
There is no regular news release.
The collection of national administrative data on Intimate Partner Violence is part of ongoing efforts by EIGE to provide information and statistics on violence against women across the European Union. EIGE has carried out the following study on the subject:
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Data are made available in EIGE's Gender Statistics database and can be found under its ‘Gender-based violence’ entry point, in the sub-theme dedicated to ‘Intimate Partner Violence'. For each type of offence, the relevant view in the Database presents data that adheres to EIGE’s definition for that indicator. Excel files containing data per country are made available from links displayed in the Description section of the metadata tab.
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Data are collected from National Statistical Institutes or national authorities in charge of collecting data on Intimate Partner Violence, such as ministries, the police or the judiciary. These sources are systematically recorded in the Excel files based on comprehensive instructions ensuring consistent data collection. The administrative data are also validated with the national contact from the relevant organisation.
In addition, data are also checked for breaks in series. In case a break is detected, this has, where possible, been clarified with the data provider and flagged and explained in the metadata in the Excel file, as well as in the forthcoming technical report (due in 2020).
Administrative data on Intimate Partner Violence need to be viewed bearing in mind the different data collection processes to record them. In this sense, there is limitation on the extent to which data are comparable between countries.
The quality of the administrative data is dependent on how well national administrative data collection processes are established, the extent to which the data are published as well as the extent to which metadata (explanatory information) is made available. For instance, good quality data are available for those countries that have well-established data collection processes with built-in quality assurance and regularly publish the data alongside elaborate metadata. Whilst in countries in which data collection are not well-established (e.g. clerical data entry without data validation) and where publication of statistics occurs on an ad-hoc basis (sometimes by different organisations) with no explanatory information, the quality of data is poor. That being said, the available data is considered to be of good quality for most countries as they were collected from reliable sources.
Comparable data on Intimate Partner Violence across the European Union currently does not exist. The EIGE data collection brings together national administrative data under common definitions that measure incidence of Intimate Partner Violence.
The resulting dataset is currently not comprehensive, but EIGE is working with Member States to improve coverage of comparable data.
These indicators help map data collections of individual EU Member States on the prevalence of Intimate Partner Violence. It also helps monitor Member States’ adherence to Article 11 of the Istanbul Convention, which foresees data collection and research on all forms of violence against women.
No user satisfaction surveys are carried out.
Completeness of data depends on the extent to which the relevant sources collect and openly publish, or are prepared to share, statistics on Intimate Partner Violence.
The completeness of the data is affected when national administrative processes do not record detailed information such as the sex or age of both the victim and the perpetrator and/or the relationship between them, or that do not recognise intimate partner violence as an offence. Completeness of data also suffers if countries collect only certain aspects of Intimate Partner Violence within the broader domain of domestic violence.
In addition, it is important to note that not all criminal events (be it cases, victims or perpetrators) are reported to the police. Hence, completeness of data might be affected by underreporting.
The completeness of data considered comparable as well as data considered non-comparable can be reviewed in the individual country spread sheets that can be downloaded from the metadata tab for each indicator. A forthcoming technical report (expect publication in 2020) collates this information in one place.
In principle, national administrative data on Intimate Partner Violence accurately reflect the situation in each country. It should be noted, however, that the coverage is restricted to administrative data provided by relevant national sources which are in turn restricted to the quality of national data collection processes and methodologies. This could potentially affect the overall accuracy of the data.
In addition, the administrative data is only able to report registered victims and offenders. If an Intimate Partner Violence offence took place but it is not registered because public institutions were not involved (e.g. no complaint was made), it will not be included in the statistics.
Known factors that could impact the accuracy of data considered comparable as well as data considered non-comparable can be reviewed in the individual country spread sheets that can be downloaded from the metadata tab for each indicator. A forthcoming technical report (expect publication in 2020) collates this information in one place.
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Timeliness varies from country to country. There is no fixed length of time at which the comprehensive data collection on Intimate Partner Violence by EIGE is made available.
Punctuality varies from country to country. The latest data available and published in 2019, is for 2018.
Data presented in the tables in EIGE’s Gender Statistics Database are comparable across countries. Many countries do not have data available that adheres to the indicator definition, however, any non-comparable data that is available or comes close to approximate Intimate Partner Violence are published in the country Excel files.
In order to make the differences in data as reported in the country Excel files as clear as possible, each row of data is accompanied by a separate column in with additional comments in which deviation from EIGE’s definition is explained. A forthcoming technical report (expect publication in 2020) collates this information in one place.
Breaks in data collection exist for some indicators in specific countries. Where this is the case, this has been clearly indicated in the metadata as flag (b) in the data table in EIGE’s Database, and in the comment section in the Excel files. Furthermore, a forthcoming technical report (expect publication in 2020) collates information on breaks for each indicator in one place.
There is no other dataset compiling statistics on the prevalence of Intimate partner Violence apart from national administrative sources that publish this data.
Internal coherence for comparable data presented in the data tables in EIGE’s Gender Statistics Database are assured through careful evaluation of the compliance of national data to EIGE’s definitions.
Internal coherence for data presented in Excel files is limited due to differences in the data collection procedures and definitions used by the national sources in recording the prevalence of offences.
Data are collected by a research team contracted by the European Institute for Gender Equality. There is no burden on Member States for the data collection.
Revision are applied retrospectively as part of new data collections.
There is no fixed revision schedule.
EIGE's data on Intimate Partner Violence is administrative from official website of national statistical institutions, police database and other relevant national institutions, in charge of collecting and disseminating data on the prevalence of the crime.
There is no fixed data collection schedule.
Direct collection of data from official websites and national contacts representing policy, justices, relevant ministries and national statistical offices.
See section on quality assurance.
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