Women Against Violence Europe (WAVE)
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Bacherplatz 10/6, A-1050 Vienna
office@wave-network.org
+43-1-548 27 20
+43-1-544 08 20 24
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31/03/2024
31/03/2024
WAVE Country Reports provide a comprehensive overview of the availability and accessibility of specialist services to support victims of violence against women and domestic violence. The reports provide an important overview of state responses to preventing and combating violence against women and measure the implementation of key international legal instruments to combat violence against women and their children (e.g. the Istanbul Convention) in Europe and the EU. The WAVE Country Reports also include country profiles, with findings for individual countries.
The WAVE Country Reports provide quantitative data as well as qualitative data on women’s specialist services. All data presented in the reports are collected by WAVE and its network of national delegates and co-delegates. EIGE’s Gender Statistics Database includes only quantitative indicators on women’s shelters and helplines in Europe. WAVE also collects data on women’s centres in Europe and national action plans addressing violence against women, but due to limited internal coherence (see also Section 17.2 on internal coherence), the information is not displayed in EIGE’s Gender Statistics Database.
WAVE data have been published annually since 2008, covering 46 European countries including the 27 Member States of the European Union (28 Member States until 2019 which included the United Kingdom). As of 2014, WAVE data is disseminated in WAVE Country Reports which also report on whether countries’ helplines and women’s shelters meet the minimum requirements. These requirements are set out by the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women, and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention) and its Explanatory Report as well as by the Council of Europe Task Force on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women, including Domestic Violence. Requirements include that Member States should provide at least one national women’s helpline to address all forms of violence against women, operating 24/7 and free of charge, and that they should provide a minimum of one woman’s shelter place per every 10 000 inhabitants (for the accommodation of a woman and her children).
Further information about the series, including downloadable reports and other publications can also be found on WAVE webpages.
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Covered in WAVE Country Reports and included in EIGE’s Gender Statistics Database:
National women’s helplines – A helpline qualifies as a national women’s helpline if it is a service provided specifically for women and if it only, or predominantly, serves women survivors of violence.
Women’s shelters – A women’s shelter is a specialist service for women survivors of violence and their children, if any, providing safe accommodation and support, based on a gendered understanding of violence and focusing on the human rights and safety of victims. Women’s shelters offer immediate and unbureaucratic services and safety precautions. They also offer long-term support in order to provide women and their children, if any, with the opportunity and resources necessary to resume their lives free from violence.
WAVE’s approach for classifying women’s shelters varies between 2014-2023. The data in EIGE’s Database refers to shelters that are both exclusive to women (women-only shelters) and shelters that are accessible to women (but also service other groups).
Shelter beds - The WAVE Country Report 2014 refers to ‘shelter places’, while the 2015-2023 reports refer to shelter ‘beds’. These terms are used interchangeably by WAVE (i.e., one shelter place is equivalent to one shelter bed in most countries).
The unit of analysis of the included data is women's shelters and national helplines as indicated by the titles of the indicators.
The statistical population includes all women's shelters and helplines as indicated by the titles of the indicators.
WAVE Country Reports 2014, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2023 covered 27 EU Member States (28 EU Member States until 2019 which included the United Kingdom) and 19 non-EU countries (Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Georgia, Iceland, Kosovo, Liechtenstein, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Norway, Russia, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and United Kingdom).
Data collection for the WAVE Country Reports 2014, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2021 were conducted in the year before and therefore reflect the situation regarding helplines and women’s shelters in, respectively, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022.
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WAVE indicators included in EIGE’s Gender Statistics Database are:
The reference period reflects the situation over a period of one year. The most recent WAVE Country Report (2023 WAVE Country Report) reflects the situation in 2022.
No legal acts are applicable that constitute an obligation for countries included in the WAVE Country Reports to provide data for the purpose of the WAVE Country Reports.
Three separate legal instruments do provide a broader mandate for countries to collect data on violence against women and support services for victims. Within this context, WAVE seeks to bring together data across Europe:
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The data collected by WAVE do not contain information about individuals, but rather about organisations (helplines and shelters). Therefore, WAVE Country Reports do not contain any administrative information such as names or addresses that would allow clear identification.
There is no set release calendar, however, data for WAVE Country Reports are published on an annual to biennial basis. The years in the titles refer to the data collection year:
Annual reports predating the Istanbul Convention (i.e. prior to the 2015 WAVE Country Report) are also available from WAVE’s webpages.
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WAVE Country Reports are published via the main website (https://www.wave-network.org/) to the public. Most recent reports and other publications are highlighted under the News heading on the homepage of the website, to inform users about recent data release.
WAVE Country Reports are published on an annual to biennial basis, please refer to Section 8.1.
No regular news release.
Reports are published annually; however, time of publication varies. The list of existing publications can be found on the WAVE website: https://wave-network.org/category/library/country-reports/
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Available details on methodology are included in each report.
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WAVE’s data collection approach was developed in 2013 and is based on the minimum standards for administrative data collection on Violence Against Women, which WAVE developed within the framework of the EU DAPHNE project PROTECT II in 2013. The online Data Collection Tool, in use since 2015, aims to increase the quality and harmonisation of data available on women's specialist services in Europe and includes minimum standards for data collection required by the Istanbul Convention.
WAVE’s data collection is the only data collection of women’s support services at European level. Therefore, it is a unique source of information.
Data availability, however, is limited by the data that are collected and published at national level. Where data are not collected and/or published, national experts’ estimates are included instead. In case of data unavailability, data from previous reports is occasionally used and this has been clearly indicated using footnotes in the report and flags in EIGE’s Gender Statistics Database. The individual country profiles (part of each WAVE Country Report) include detailed information on what is in- and excluded in the data for that country.
The focus of the statistical data is to provide a comprehensive overview about the availability and value of women’s specialist services such as women’s shelters and helplines in Europe. This overall picture is an important indicator of state response to preventing and combating violence against women and the implementation (or gaps therein) of key international legal frameworks such as the Istanbul Convention. The availability of data about women’s specialist services and women using them, varies greatly across Europe and not all countries have comprehensive statistics available, data on shelters and women’s centres typically vary between countries.
WAVE aims to streamline this data collection, to increase the amount and availability of data on women’s specialist services, to effectively demonstrate the impact of, and need for, these services to internal as well as external stakeholders, such as policymakers and funders as well as the wider public.
Ultimately WAVE aims to increase the quality and harmonisation of data available on women’s specialist services in Europe and thus contribute to effective lobbying efforts to close gaps in service provision, demonstrate the impact of women’s specialist services, and ultimately make a significant contribution to ending violence against women.
No user satisfaction surveys are carried out.
Data completeness varies by country and depends on the availability of published data by national authorities.
The data are sourced from national administrative data collections and their accuracy are therefore dependent on these national-level data collections. In some cases, data are not collected or published, in which case experts’ estimates or data from previous reports have been provided instead. These may all introduce significant error in the data. Nonetheless, the data are the only and most comprehensive collection on services for women victims of violence available.
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Findings based on WAVE’s data collection are published on WAVE’s website. In general, data are published in the course of year N+1 (where N = year of data collection).
The 2023 WAVE Country Report is based on 2022 data and was published in December 2023.
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Increasing harmonisation of available data is WAVE’s main priority as availability of comprehensive data on the existence and use of women’s specialist services varies greatly across countries.
Data provided by WAVE are collected as a secondary data collection exercise (collecting data from existing national data sources) which use different methodologies. Hence comparability of data is limited.
Questions on the three key areas, women's shelter, helpline and women's centres were included in each year to assess changes in the condition of women's specialist service provision. Any breaks in the timeseries (e.g. change of source), however, are not reported on.
The WAVE Country Reports are the sole source for statistics on women’s specialist support services in Europe.
Section 3.4 of the metadata described the definitions used for measuring the four main women’s support services covered in the WAVE Country Reports. Three of these, women’s centres, specialist services for survivors of sexualised violence and national action plans, are not included in EIGE’s Gender Statistics Database as WAVE highlights that what is included in the term ‘women’s centre’, ‘national action plan’ and centres providing specialist services for survivors of sexualised violence (‘rape crisis centres’ and ‘sexual violence referral centres’) varies strongly across countries. Indeed, for women’s centres it recommends that future work should focus on creating a common European definition of what constitutes a women’s centre.
The definitions of a national women’s helpline and women’s shelters are internally coherent; however, the 2019 Report points out that the strict measurement of a national women’s helplines does not reflect coverages in countries where multiple regional or local helplines together provide national coverage. Also, in some instances national helplines are not dedicated specifically to assist women or are operated by NGOs. In 2018, this was the case for Azerbaijan, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Serbia and Switzerland:
In 2020, new or improved national women's helplines were introduced in Croatia, Luxembourg, Portugal, Serbia, and Norway. There were no helplines dedicated to assist women in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Czech Republic, Malta, Netherlands, and Switzerland.
The WAVE Country Reports show, 37 out of 46 European states have at least one national helpline for women survivors of violence in 2022, compared to 39 in 2020. The 2023 report explains that this occurs because the service in Latvia no longer qualifies as a national women’s helpline, and the service is Belarus is no longer operational.
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No revisions are made after the publication for the data.
There is no fixed revision schedule.
Data were collected from a combination of international (e.g. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)) and national (e.g. country experts and national women’s’ services) sources.
Annual to biennial (please refer to the release calendar section).
As part of the data collection for the WAVE Country Reports 2014 and 2015, multiple methods for data collection were used, such as literature research, information gathering from international bodies. This information was further complemented with additional data collected through an electronic questionnaire sent to national expert on women’s specialist services, i.e. experienced practitioners in WAVE member organisations.
As part of the data collection for the 2019 WAVE Country Report, data were collected through an online data collection tool and supplemented with results from a questionnaire. For the data collection for the 2021 and 2023 WAVE Country Report, the online data collection tool was further developed to improve its accessibility and ease the tasks of respondents.
As part of the data collection for 2019, 2021 and 2023 WAVE Country Reports, data were collected through an online data collection tool. The information provided through the online questionnaire was rigorously checked by WAVE staff to ensure its accuracy and reliability, making sure it coincides with relevant data collected by WAVE in previous years. Moreover, throughout the data collection process, comparisons have also been made to data presented in previous WAVE Country Reports, to identify any notable trends in terms of service provisions.
WAVE data include information on the total number of beds missing and the percentage of beds missing. These figures measure the gap between the current number of beds available in women’s specialist support service provision and the minimum number of required beds according to the Istanbul Convention. The Explanatory Report of the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention) states that countries should provide a minimum of one woman’s shelter space per every 10 000 inhabitants (for the accommodation of a woman and her children).
The methodology adopted for WAVE’s calculation is based on ‘bed space’ rather than the ‘family places’ of the Convention. That is, one shelter place (for the accommodation of a woman and her children) is considered to be the equivalent of one shelter bed space. The calculations are as follows:
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