28
October
2011

Factsheet: Gender-based violence against women – an EU-wide survey

In 2011—2012, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) will conduct an EU-wide survey on violence against women. This is the first survey of its kind to randomly sample and interview 40,000 women across the 27 EU Member States and Croatia. It will therefore furnish the robust, comparable data that policy makers need to shape informed, targeted policies to combat such violence.

The specific objectives of the survey are to:

  • provide evidence needed by key stakeholders such as policy makers, practitioners and non-governmental organisations for the development of policies and other measures to combat violence against women;
  • supply, for the first time, EU-wide comparable data on the extent and nature of women’s experiences of physical, sexual and psychological violence and harassment – including whether they report these experiences and what the response is when they do;
  • contribute to the collection of data for the development of indicators that will be used to monitor violence against women and responses to it.