Women are three times more frequently victims of intimate partner violence than men

Speaking of intimate partner violence, three quarters of victims are women. When it comes to violence outside the partnership, there are also more female victims, but the gender ratio is more balanced: 51% of victims are women and 49% are men.



Violence against women has more severe consequences than violence experienced by men  

Women are more frequently victims of all types of repeated violence. They experience repeated sexual violence 5.3-times more frequently than men do and other types of violence twice as often as men do. They experience one-time sexual violence 4.6-times more frequently than men do. The only types of violence experienced more by men than by women are one-time threats and one-time physical violence. 



The consequences of violence against women are also worse than the consequences of violence experienced by men. 30% more women than men had physical injuries (e.g. bruises, scratches, cuts, burns, broken bones, abortion, head injuries, injured internal organs or genitals) as a result of physical or sexual violence. In addition, twice as many women (5.6%) as men (2.4%) were afraid for their lives while experiencing physical or sexual violence.  

Women are more frequently victims of domestic violence

Domestic violence was experienced at least once since the age of 15 by 14.9% of women and 5.4% of men aged 18–74. Three quarters of domestic violence was physical violence with threats, while a quarter was sexual violence. Women were three times more frequently victims of domestic violence and five times more frequently victims of domestic sexual violence than men.  

The most frequent type of intimate partner violence is psychological violence 

Almost a third (28%) of women and a fifth (20%) of men who ever had a partner was a victim of at least one type (threats, psychological, physical, sexual or economic) of violence by their intimate partner. The most common type of intimate partner violence is psychological violence: 26.2% of ever-partnered women and 19.7% of ever-partnered men have experienced such violence. Sexual violence is the least common type of intimate partner violence; however, women are 5.6-times more frequently victims of such violence than men. 



It is characteristic of intimate partner violence that it is repeated, that it has serious consequences and that women are more often victims of their intimate partners than men are. 6.9% of women who have experienced intimate partner violence reported physical injuries as a result of violence. The share for men was 1.5%. As regards psychological consequences of repeated intimate partner violence, 6.2% of women and 1.1% of men reported about having experienced that. During intimate partner violence, seven times more women than men were afraid for their lives. 

Men more frequently experience non-partner physical violence 

15.8% of women and 14.5% of men have experienced physical (including threats) or sexual violence by a non-partner since the age of 15. Non-partner sexual violence is also (almost 5 times) more frequently experienced by women than by men, while as regards non-partner physical violence it is the opposite. Men experience physical violence by a person who is not their partner slightly more often than women do. 



It is characteristic of non-partner violence that it more often happens only once, i.e. it is not repeated as intimate partner violence often is. In this type of violence, the gender ratio is much more equal than in other types. Just over half of victims of non-partner violence are women and just under half are men. Men experience physical injuries caused by non-partner violence more often than women (6.3% of male victims and 4.0% of female victims were injured). The shares of victims reporting feeling afraid for their lives during the violent event were about the same: women 2.5%, men 2.3%. 

Most violence remains unreported

More than 60% of victims speak about their experience with violence, most commonly with a person who is close to them. Most of the violence, however, remains unreported, since victims only seldom report it to the Police or other institutions.