One in 20 women are rape victims, shocking figures reveal

The statistics came as pressure mounted on the Government to build on its announcement last night that misogyny will be recorded as a hate crime
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Nearly 620,000 women suffered a rape, sexual assault or attempted sex attack last year but only one in six reported the crime, official figures revealed today.

The figures, published by the Office for National Statistics, also show that more than one in 20 women have been raped since the age of 16 and that half of sex attack victims have been targeted more than once.

Four out of 10 rapes or other sexual assaults were carried out by an existing or former partner, with a third of offences committed in the victim’s own home.

But nearly one in 10 of the crimes involved a victim being targeted “on the street, in a car park, park, or another open public space” in further evidence that the dangers of being accosted in public highlighted by the Sarah Everard case are faced by many women.

The statistics, drawn from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, came as pressure mounted on the Government to build on its announcement last night that misogyny will be recorded by police forces as a hate crime in future.

The reform, which will include the Met, means data on crimes motivated by “hatred of sex or gender” will be flagged so that patterns of offending and perpetrators can be more easily identified.

Campaigners, who have been led by Walthamstow MP Stella Creasy, hailed the change as a victory but now want to press ministers to go further by altering the law so that misogynistic offences can be punished with a top-up to the sentence that would otherwise apply.

The immediate focus today, however, was on the bleak figures on the scale of sexual offending across the country.

The statistics show that 773,000 adults aged 16 to 74 were victims of sexual assault during the 12 months to the end of March last year, of whom 618,000 were women.

But only 16 per cent of female victims reported the crime to police despite nearly two fifths receiving a physical injury and two thirds suffering “a mental or emotional problem” as a result of their ordeal.

Sarah Everard Floral Tributes - In pictures

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The reasons for this included embarrassment, which was cited by 40 per cent, while 38 per cent did not think the police could help, and 34 per cent thought it would be humiliating.

The figures also show that 1.6 million adults aged 16 to 74 have suffered a sexual assault by rape or penetration, including attempts, since becoming an adult, with women accounting for the overwhelming majority of victims.

They state 6.2 per cent of women have experienced rape or an attempted rape since the age of 16 and that 4.8 per cent have experienced assault by penetration, including attempts.

On ages, 40 per cent of female victims were 16 to 19 and 26.5 per cent were aged 20 to 24, while 20 per cent were aged 25 to 34. Men accounted for 98 per cent of offenders of whom two thirds were aged between 20 and 39.

The statistics follow the Government’s announcement last night that it is to tell police forces to begin recording crimes motivated by “hatred of sex and gender” as a hate crime. It means forces will now compile data on such crimes in a way that supporters of the change believe will make it easier to identify patterns of offending and perpetrators.

Pressure was already building today, however, for further action to amend the Government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill so that offences motivated by misogyny can be punished with a top-up to the sentence that would normally be passed for an offence.

Welcoming the decision, Ms Creasy tweeted: “Amazing! Government agrees to ask all police forces to record data on crimes motivated by sex or gender to help inform tackling violence against women from this autumn — they have accepted our argument to treat #MisogynyAsHateCrime! Now for amending the sentencing bill.”

The MP added that police recording misogyny as a hate crime “isn’t about not opening doors for women or being able to make mother-in-law jokes” and that people could “carry on being crass” but that “if you assault a woman for being a woman this would be recorded”.

The Fawcett Society praised the move as a “major step forward in changing how we understand, address and prevent violence against women” and said it hoped that it would also help to “change attitudes” towards women.

Seven police forces already record misogyny as a hate crime but, announcing that the policy will now be implemented nationwide on an experimental basis.

Home Office minister Baroness Williams said the Government hoped it would “help us find solutions to the problem of violence against women”.

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