Every third woman across the EU has experienced physical violence, including threats, or sexual violence, a survey has revealed, in what one official described as an “invisible epidemic”.
The findings released on Monday are based on responses from women aged 18 to 74 from across the EU’s 27 member states.
The survey offered a glimpse of the wide-reaching impact that violence has had on the 229 million women who live across the bloc, said Sirpa Rautio, the director of the EU’s Agency for Fundamental Rights. “One-third of them have been slapped, hit, kicked, raped or threatened with such violence,” she said. “In the EU, in 2024, women’s safety still cannot be guaranteed.”
In what she described as a “sad reality”, the figures remained virtually unchanged from those published in a 2014 EU-wide survey on violence against women. “A decade later, we continue to witness the same shocking levels of violence that affect one in three women.”
The survey, released on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, also found that one in six women in the EU had experienced sexual violence, including rape, during adulthood.
About 19% of women said they had faced violence or threats of violence from a person living in their household. “The home is still a dangerous place for many women,” said Rautio.
The survey also polled women on their workplace experiences, finding that one in three had been sexually harassed, with reports ranging from inappropriate jokes to staring and sexual advances. For women aged 18 to 29, the figure climbed to 42% of respondents.
Just 14% of women said they had reported the violence to police. Those who had chosen not to report cited worries about their safety, feelings of shame or a lack of trust in the authorities. “This underreporting means that we have an invisible epidemic of violence in Europe,” said Rautio.
Carlien Scheele, the director of the European Institute for Gender Equality, linked the low reporting rates to the “shame and blame” that continues to be associated with violence against women. “The troubling reality is not just how many women experience violence in the EU, it’s also how many women don’t report experiences of violence,” she said, calling for the adoption of victim-centred and culturally sensitive approaches that would allow women to feel safer coming forward.
Scheele described the findings as particularly worrying given the proliferation of misogynistic content on social media. “What we do see in the European Union is that there is a rise of anti-gender, let’s say, narratives, strategies, movements,” said Scheele. “And so, women are being ridiculed, and this anti-gender sentiment is being used to change things in society that I think is worsening the situation we live in.”
The stakes of the battle are high, as violence against women costs the EU an estimated €289bn (£240bn) a year, said Scheele, citing a figure linked to lost economic output and the cost of public services such as legal and housing aid. “So apart from the human suffering and the violation of human rights and women’s rights, it also comes with huge economic costs for the European Union.”
In recent months, the issue of violence against women has catapulted to the top of the news agenda as 51 men stand trial in a mass rape case in France.
Gisèle Pelicot, whose husband has admitted to drugging her and inviting dozens of strangers to rape her over the span of a decade, has been hailed as a feminist hero after she insisted that the trial be held in public. “It’s not for us to have shame, it’s for them,” she has said, offering up a view that has galvanised conversations about sexual violence around the world.
Scheele said she was among the many who were closely following the trial. “Is it going to change public opinion? I hope so,” she said. “I really hope that people sincerely see what is happening in our societies. It’s a pandemic.”
The “horrendous” Pelicot case and the figures released on Monday were among the many signals that the level of violence against women was a “crisis”, she added. “In a crisis situation, be it Covid or the energy crisis, the European Union got its act together at rapid speed.”
Now she wanted to see the same approach applied to women’s safety across the bloc. “I really sincerely hope that what we have published today, what we will publish in the future, what we have published in the past and cases like the one of Madame Pelicot, that it will change public opinion,” said Scheele. “And most importantly, it will change the attitude of perpetrators and possible perpetrators.”
