According to new estimates, one in eight women were victims of sexual harassment, domestic misconduct or staring in the previous year.
Statistics have been published by the office as part of the National Statistics (ONS). Crime survey for England and Wales for the year by March 2025.
The survey found that 5.2 million people, aged 16 and above (10.6%), were likely to experience one or more of these crime types – but 8.4%of men had a percentage higher for women (12.8%).
This is the first time an estimate is composed of joint circulation of three crimes and is the main solution used by ONS to monitor the government’s ambition to reduce violence against women and girls (VAWG) in a decade.
The home office will provide more expansion at the end of this year how it will be used with other data to monitor its progress.
The individual breakdown of the spread of the crime listed in the survey suggests:
- 2.9% (about 1.4 million people) chased
- 7.8% (about 3.8 million people) experienced domestic misuse
- 1.9% (about 900,000 people) experienced sexual harassment
- 8.6% (about 4.2 million people) experienced some forms of harassment
From March 2024, a slightly higher estimate of 5.4 million people in the previous year, or 11.3%, experienced one or more of these crimes in the previous year.
But ONS warned against comparing between years as estimates were still in development and subject to change.
Separate data in the survey shows that England and Wales had 9.4 million incidents of overall crime in March a year – up to 7% from the previous year.
The largest driver for this was for about 4.2 million incidents due to an increase of 31% in fraud – the survey was the most estimated number since the survey in 2017.
