Preamble

The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, adopted in 1993 by the United Nations General Assembly, reflects international recognition that violence against women is a violation of human rights and a form of discrimination against women. The Platform for Action adopted in Beijing in 1995 at the Fourth World Conference on Women identified violence against women as one of 12 critical areas requiring special attention from governments, the international community and civil society. Switzerland was only an observer country. Switzerland joined the UN in September 2002. The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention) has been in force in Switzerland since 1 April 2018.

In the field of domestic violence, the main source of information comes from the cantonal police crime statistics (SPC). The FSO collects the cantonal data, produces an annual report covering all the offences recorded and publishes various indicators and tables specific to violence and domestic violence. The cantonal police forces also publish their own reports based on their own data supplied to the FSO.

Since 2009, the FSO has made available to the public annually 5 tables on violence in general and 37 tables specific to domestic violence (figures for 2021).

As part of the monitoring of progress towards the sustainable development goals of the United Nations Agenda 2030 (MONET 2030), the FSO calculates a domestic violence indicator for the theme of ‘Gender equality’ ( SDG 5.2). It also calculates, for the theme of ‘Peace, justice and effective institutions’, an indicator of violent crime ( SDG 16.1). For the monitoring of the legislature, the FSO also calculates a domestic violence indicator, identical to that of the 2030 objective, and a violent crime indicator fairly close to that of the 2030 objective.

In the field of victim support, the FSO has published 10 tables each year for the period beginning in 2000. Since 2018, the FSO has published a table including the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim. These data are available towards the end of June each year.

The resident population statistics (number of households, men/women, CH/nonCH) needed for population calculations are published in October.

The essentials in brief

The latest version of the summary report is available here (in French).

Victims of severe domestic violence

In the sustainable development indicators of the United Nations Agenda 2030 (MONET 2030) and the 2019-2023 legislative period, the concept of serious violence, which is already restrictive for the violent crime indicator, is different and even more restrictive for domestic violence. For example, rape is not taken into account for domestic violence. By applying the definition of serious violence according to our SDG indicator 5.2-K2.1 :

• A tenfold increase in the number of victims, from 123 in 2023 to 1,400.
• The proportion of female victims rises from 69% in 2023 to 85%.

Official indicators dramatically underestimate domestic violence and the proportion of women who are proportion of women who are victims.

Victim support and hidden domestic violence

More detailed victim support statistics have been published since 2018. They include the type of relationship between the victim and the perpetrator, as well as the perpetrator’s gender and age group. When these data are compared with police crime statistics, the number of victims and offences is exploding, both overall and when the age (minor or adult) and gender of the perpetrator are taken into account. For the year 2023 :

• The number of victims rose from 11,479 to 62,995, taking into account the gender of the perpetrator and the type of relationship with the victim.
• The number of offences rose from 19,918 to 144,586.

The proportion between the data taken from police crime statistics and those extrapolated on the basis of victim support data corresponds to certain estimates which suggest that only 1 in 5 cases is reported.

The difficulty of lodging a complaint

While, overall, the difficulty of lodging a complaint for victims of domestic violence is higher than for victims of ‘non-domestic’ violence by a factor of between 2.9 and 3.25 between 2018 and 2023, it varies greatly between the different types of offence depending on the age category, the sex of the perpetrator and the type of relationship with the victim.

Victims find it 6 to 7 times more difficult to lodge a complaint when the male assailant is their ‘ partner “ for ” Bodily harm and assault ’ offences. This difficulty rate (FDPP) rises to 10 for’ Extortion and blackmail, threats, coercion ’.

When the perpetrator is an ‘Ex-partner’, the FDPP is only between 3 and 4, and between 4 and 5 for these two types of offence. For perpetrators with an ‘Other’ type relationship, these FDPPs are around 5, or between 6 and 8 respectively.

The picture is virtually the same for both male and female offenders over the age of majority.

If the perpetrator is female, the victim (generally ‘the’ victim) of her ‘Partner’ has a FDPP of 2 for ‘Bodily harm and assault’ offences and 3 for ‘Extortion and blackmail, threats, coercion’ offences. For an ‘ex-partner’ perpetrator, the ratio is 1 or 2 respectively.
For victims of ‘Other’ female perpetrators, the FDPP is 4.5, or between 6 and 8, roughly the same as for ‘Other’ male perpetrators.

In the case of offences with a sexual connotation (‘ Sexual acts with children “, ” Sexual acts with dependent persons “, ” Sexual coercion, rape “ and ” Other offences against sexual integrity “), the FDPPs that victims have of their male ”partner’ are lower than those highlighted above. In descending order, they are 9.2 for ‘Other offences against sexual integrity’, 2.1 for ‘Sexual acts with children’, 1.7 for ‘Sexual coercion, rape’ and 1.2 for ‘Sexual acts with dependent persons’.

When the male perpetrator is only the‘Ex-partner’, the FDPP for the victim is 3.7 for ‘Other offences against sexual integrity’, 1.3 for ‘Sexual acts with children’, 0.9 for ‘Sexual coercion, rape’ and 0.7 for ‘Sexual acts with dependent persons’.

En estimant le nombre d’auteur.e.s avec les FDPP calculés en fonction du sexe de l’auteur-e et de sa relation avec la victime, les auteurs hommes représentent entre 85 et 90% des auteur-e-s et non plus « seulement » 75%. Par simplification, en admettant qu’à un auteur homme correspond une victime féminine, le 85 à 90 % des victimes sont des femmes. C’est une mise en évidence supplémentaire que la violence domestique est due aux hommes contre des femmes, de manière encore plus flagrante que ce qu’indique la SPC. Il faut espérer que cela incitera les politiciens et les juges à ne pas « abuser » de l’égalité des sexes en présence de violence domestique et qu’ils admettent que cela va à l’encontre de la Convention d’Istanbul en vigueur en Suisse depuis le 1^er avril 2018.

Domestic violence for different populations

By comparing data from the SPC and the resident population of Switzerland, it is possible to determine whether, for different criteria (women, men, age groups), certain groups are over- or under-represented (relative proportion [RP]). For the period 2011 to 2023, the impact of the gender of victims shows that :

• Male victims of all types of domestic violence, whether Swiss or resident foreigners (CH or nonCH resident), have an RP of less than 100%. The RP of Swiss men is around 40% (44% in 2023), while that of foreign men is rising and will exceed 100% in 2022 (100% in 2023).
• Women affected by all types of domestic violence, whether Swiss women or resident foreigners, have an RP close to or above 100%. The PR of Swiss women is around 100% (94% in 2023), while that of foreign women has fallen since 2011 from 320% to 270% (271% in 2023).
• In terms of rates, Swiss women are four to five times more likely to suffer serious domestic violence (5 times in 2023) than Swiss men. Foreign women are affected seven to 10 times more than foreign men (7 times in 2023) and even almost ten to twelve times more than Swiss men (10 times in 2023).

Young people under 18

For young people under 18, taking into account Bernese statistics on the presence of children during cantonal police interventions, the relative proportion of female victims has fluctuated between 350 and 370% since 2010 (361% in 2023). The relative proportion of underage male victims has fluctuated between 280% and 300% (287% in 2023).

These figures show the very high risk of future domestic violence linked to its reproduction by children forced by civil justice in the name of the parent’s right to maintain contact with the perpetrator of violence.