How can improved data collection help end violence against women?

Mar 30

Editor’s Note: A reminder on the importance of data quality.

From: European Union – Press Release/Statement

To reduce violence against women, first we need to understand the scope of the phenomenon, and for that we need quality data. Reliable and comparable statistics help us to assess the effectiveness of policy measures and services in place, estimate the resources needed to tackle the issue and track progress over time. EIGE’s work on good practices has now identified examples of proven and effective methods on administrative data collection.

Administrative data is provided by individuals who report violence to the police, courts, hospitals and shelters. Although EU Member States collect administrative data on violence against women, major obstacles for the collection of reliable and comparable data remain. There is a lack of agreed definitions on the EU level, such as what constitutes domestic violence or sexual assault. Furthermore, data collected may not record the sex of the victim and perpetrator, nor the relationship between them. This makes it very difficult to identify certain types of violence, such as intimate partner violence, and make comparisons across Members States.

To support Member States improve the quality of data on violence against women, EIGE has identified 12 good practices on data collection methodologies from ten EU countries. They are divided into three categories of data collection from the following areas:

Police and criminal justice
Health and social services
Female genital mutilation

These good practices were selected by experts working in the field of police and justice, statistics, health and social services, academia and civil society organisations who are in contact with women victims of violence. The good practices can be transferred to different contexts and will assist in the future collection of admin data. They will soon be available on EIGE’s website.

You can access existing data and information on gender-based violence, through the new Gender Statistics Database by searching under the thematic area of gender-based violence.

EIGE’s previous work on administrative data sources on gender-based violence in the EU can be found here

– See more at: http://foreignaffairs.co.nz/2016/03/30/how-can-improved-data-collection-help-end-violence-against-women/#sthash.UZ1n3Zas.dpuf