One in eight women victims of domestic abuse, stalking or sexual assault, new figures show
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), around 3.2 million women aged over 16 were victims of at least one of these crimes between March 2024 and 2025.
It is the first time the ONS has grouped domestic abuse, sexual assault and stalking figures together, using data collected as part of the Crime Survey for England and Wales.
The ONS hope this will mean it can more accurately estimate of the prevalence of domestic abuse, sexual assault and stalking against women and girls.
The government will also use the figures to track its efforts on tackling violence against women and girls (VAWG).
The figures, released Thursday, show estimated 5.1 million people aged 16 and over in England and Wales are likely to have experienced one of these crime types. Of those, 3.2 million are women and nearly 2.0 million are men.
This equates to about one in 12 men being victims of at least one of the crime types over the same period.
Reacting to the figures, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: "We have already started to put domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms, invested in major new perpetrator programmes, and why we are publishing a transformative cross-government VAWG strategy in September, because everybody has a right to feel safe on our streets.'
Women's Aid welcomed the ONS grouping the data together, saying it was a step towards a better overview of these crimes.
Sarah Davidge, head of research and evaluation at Women's Aid, said the move "reflects the Government's commitment to ending VAWG", but added the data does not show the number of times each person was victimised.She added: "We know that women encounter higher rates of repeat victimisation, are more likely to be subject to coercive and controlling behaviour and be seriously harmed or killed than male victims."Therefore, prevalence measures can underestimate the gender asymmetry of these crimes."
Elsewhere, ONS data published on Thursday shows people aged 16 and over experienced 9.4 million incidents of crime in the year to March 2025, up from 8.8 million in the previous 12 months.
The rise is mainly due to a 31% rise in fraud, which accounts for 4.2 million incidents and is the highest estimate since fraud was first measured in the survey in 2016/17.
The figures also show that offences of shoplifting and theft from the person remain at record highs, while homicides are at their lowest level for more than a decade.
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The Independent
3 hours ago
- The Independent
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'In the last twelve months, we have set the foundations for this new and much stronger law enforcement approach – establishing the new Border Security Command, strengthening the NCA and UK police operations, increasing Immigration Enforcement, introducing new counter terror style powers in our Border Security Bill, and establishing cooperation agreements with Europol and other countries. 'Now this additional funding will strengthen every aspect of our plan, and will turbo-charge the ability of our law enforcement agencies to track the gangs and bring them down, working with our partners overseas, and using state-of-the-art technology and equipment.' However, Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said the £100m was a gimmick that would make no real difference. 'There have been more than 25,000 illegal crossings so far this year, making it the worst year in history. Labour has failed and their laughable claim to smash the gangs lies in tatters,' he said. 'They have no serious plan, just excuses, while ruthless criminal gangs flood our borders with illegal immigrants. The Conservative Deportation Bill is the only real solution. Immediate detention, rapid removal and shutting down these illegal networks for good. 'This weak Labour government has lost control of our borders, and we now see rapes and sexual assaults by illegal immigrants reported on a near daily basis.' In a statement to The Telegraph, however, Mr Hewitt said: 'This additional £100 million investment in our Border Security Command represents a critical escalation in our fight against the criminal gangs exploiting our immigration system and putting lives at risk through dangerous Channel crossings. 'This significant immediate funding will deliver cutting-edge technology, additional officers, and enhanced intelligence capabilities to dismantle the organised criminal networks at every level. 'This comprehensive package will strengthen our frontline capabilities with more National Crime Agency staff focused on intelligence targeting of crime gang members, state-of-the-art detection technology, and sophisticated new equipment designed to disrupt organised immigration crime. 'We're also investing in our domestic response, bolstering our Organised Immigration Crime Domestic Taskforce and intensifying illegal working enforcement to tackle the UK-based elements of these criminal operations. 'Crucially, this funding recognises that organised immigration crime is a global issue requiring a global response. 'We're extending our reach upstream and across transit countries in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia to target criminal gangs at source, disrupt human trafficking networks, remove the supply of dangerous small boat equipment, and counter the lies criminals tell vulnerable people about safe passage. 'The investment will also support the implementation of the UK's new 'one-in, one-out' returns agreement pilot with France and the enhanced powers under the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, including new capabilities to seize and analyse digital devices for intelligence gathering and criminalise the dissemination of online material that promotes breaches of immigration law. 'As part of the government's Plan for Change to secure our borders, we are working hand-in-hand with international partners to use every tool at our disposal to stop these criminal gangs getting away with undermining our border security, and to protect the vulnerable people they are exploiting for profit.'
