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15.1. Overview and Key Messages
• Violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence (VAWDASV) is a fundamental violation of human rights, a cause and consequence of inequality and has far reaching consequences for families, children and society as a whole (Welsh Government, 2016)
• DomesticAbusecostsWales£303.5mannually.Thisincludes£202.6minservicecosts and £100.9m to lost economic output. If the emotional and human cost is factored in there are added costs of £522.9m (Walby, 2009 cited in Welsh Women’s Aid, n.d)
• The cost, in both human and economic terms, is so significant that marginally effective interventions are cost effective (Welsh Government, 2016)
• New requirements under the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, the SSWB Act, and Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Act, 2015 impact this area and are likely to increase the number of cases of domestic abuse identified
• Improving partnership responses to survivors could reduce the levels of need for specialist services
15.2. Demographics and Trends
VAWDASV includes domestic abuse, sexual violence, forced marriage, female genital mutilation (FGM), ‘honour-based violence’, sexual exploitation, trafficking and child sexual abuse. This can happen in any relationship regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability, income, geography or lifestyle (Welsh Government, 2016).
• 1.4 million women and 700,000 men aged 16-59 report experiencing incidents of domestic abuse in England and Wales. Younger women aged 16-24 are most at risk and a woman is killed every 2.4 days in the UK, with 148 UK women killed by men in 2014
• Extrapolating this data to Wales shows that 11% women and 5% men a year experience ‘any domestic abuse’, while rates of ‘any sexual assault’ in the last year were also higher for women (3.2%) than men (0.7%)
• Approximately 124,000 women, men, boys and girls over the age of 16 in Wales, have been the victim of a sexual offence
• Therehasbeena26%increaseinthenumberofrecordedsexualoffencesinvolving children under 16 in Wales in the past year. Figures have more than doubled in the last decade (Bentley et al, 2016). Last year the rate of recorded sexual offences against children under 16 in Wales was 3.3 per 1000 children
• In 2011 an estimated 137,000 girls and women were living with consequences of FGM in the UK and in 2011 an estimated 60,000 girls under the age of 15 were living in the UK who were born to mothers from FGM practising countries and therefore could be at risk of FGM. It is estimated there are 140 victims of FGM a year in Wales
West Wales Population Assessment March 2017 VAWDASV