On Wednesday 28 December 2022, Luxembourg's national statistics agency (STATEC) published a report that found that almost one in five people (aged 16-74) has been affected by acts of physical, sexual or psychological violence at least once in the past 12 months.
However, following the acts of violence, what happened to these 81,000 victims? Have they been in contact with the police? Did they seek professional help? The vast majority of victims (78%) did not contact the police, doctors, psychologists, social workers or other professionals.
The differences in reaction to violence between men and women, and these forms of violence that often remain invisible are treated in a report just published of a study conducted by STATEC in 2019/2020.
Women and men seem to be affected in roughly the same proportions by physical violence; 4% of women and 5% of men have been physically assaulted at least once in the past 12 months. The finding is similar with regard to psychological violence. The proportion of male (14%) and female (15%) victims is the same. Women are much more likely to be attacked by perpetrators from their personal environment, which means that they are particularly at risk of experiencing repeated violence - a fact that is not reflected in victimisation rates such as that they are calculated and that measure the prevalence in the population.
Around 63,000 victims of physical, psychological or sexual violence remain virtually invisible
78% of victims of violence said they had not been in contact with the police or with professionals such as doctors, psychologists, social workers or other professionals in medical, social or religious institutions. Or, to put it another way, most victims do not seek professional assistance and do not report their experiences of violence. This is true for both women (79%) and men (77%). What picture emerges if we take a closer look at contacts with the police?
Only about 4,300 men and 2,600 women victims of physical, psychological or sexual violence had contact with the police (9%)
This proportion is twice as high among men (12%) as among women (6%). One explanation for this phenomenon could be the context of victimisation: women being attacked more often than men in their personal environment; their inhibition threshold for informing the police is therefore probably higher. In addition, the domestic context offers the aggressor more possibilities of not being detected, for example, due to the absence of external witnesses who could also inform the police.
Around 5,400 men and 7,400 women victims of physical, psychological or sexual violence sought professional support (other than the police), i.e. one in six victims…
The proportion of victims seeking support from professionals is somewhat higher. About one in six victims had contact with professionals, i.e. doctors or psychologists, social workers or priests after an act of violence. Women seem to seek help slightly more frequently, but the differences between men and women are not statistically significant.
… in this context, doctors and psychologists are the main points of contact for victims
About one in ten victims confides in a doctor or psychologist. Specialised victim support services, on the other hand, still play a limited role. Less than 1% of victims have used it in the last 12 years. This puts them behind religious organisations.
... doubt about the effectiveness, lack of knowledge and above all the conviction that what happened is not serious enough encourage victims not to turn to specialised services
How is it that victim support services are still so rarely used? About a third of male and female victims of violence believe that what they experienced was not serious enough to seek help. Another important reason for not contacting these organisations is the assumption that they would not be able to help affected people properly. However, differences can be observed between men and women: one out of four male victims and one out of five female victims think that it would be of no use to them to contact such an organisation. 9% of women and 8% of men did not know who to contact.
