Violence against women a 'national emergency'

About 2 million women are estimated to be victims of violence perpetrated by men each year in an epidemic so grave it amounts to a "national emergency", police chiefs warned today.

- Vikram Dodd

Crimes including stalking, harassment, sexual assault and domestic violence affect one in 12 women in England and Wales, with the number of recorded offences growing by 37% in the past five years and the perpetrators getting younger.

The figures are contained in the first national analysis of the scale of violence against women and girls (VAWG) by the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC), released today.

Police chiefs also warned of young men being "radicalised" online by influencers such as Andrew Tate.

They demand that technology companies act more quickly to take down extreme material.

The report says: "We estimate that at least one in every 12 women will be a victim of VAWG every year (2 million victims) and one in 20 adults in England and Wales will be a perpetrator of VAWG every year (2.3 million).

These are cautious estimates as we know much crime goes unreported and in policing, we often only see the tip of the iceberg." This year, amid horror over the scale of offending, the Guardian launched Killed Women Count, a project reporting on every woman allegedly killed by a man in 2024, whose stories often go untold.

Keir Starmer, the prime minister, has promised to halve violence against women and girls within a decade, with taskforces in each police force including specialist domestic abuse workers responding to 999 calls.

The new NPCC report, which analysed official data, finds: One in six homicides in England and Wales are linked to domestic abuse, or 100 out of the 590 homicides in the year to March 2023.