LONDON, July 23 – Violence against women and girls is a “national emergency” with nearly 3,000 incidents registered every day, a top British police chief has warned in a new report, according to PA Media/dpa news.
Over one million violent crimes against women and girls were recorded by police in 2022/23, according to the report commissioned by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and the College of Policing.
The National Policing Statement for Violence Against Women and Girls found that such crimes accounted for just under 20 per cent of all police-recorded crimes excluding fraud in England and Wales between April 2022 and March 2023.
The report estimated that at least one in every 12 women will be a victim per year – equating to two million women – with the exact number expected to be much higher because of crimes that go unreported.
The deputy chief executive of the College of Policing said violence against women and girls had “reached epidemic levels” in England and Wales and called for government intervention in the “overwhelmed” criminal justice system.
One in 20 adults or 2.3 million people in England and Wales are perpetrators of such violence every year, the report estimated, with the actual number thought to be significantly higher.
The age of offenders is also getting younger, with the average age of a suspect for child sexual abuse and exploitation now 15.
Child sexual abuse and exploitation offences also increased by 435 per cent between 2013 and 2022, the report estimated – from just over 20,000 to nearly 107,000.
The NPCC said police forces were seeing “ever more complicated types of offending” causing “significant harm to victims and society as a whole”.
