Thirty percent of women experience domestic abuse in UK

15 Feb HMV

Thirty percent of British women have experienced some form of domestic abuse since the age of 16, according to official figures.

The study by Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that 30 percent of women and 16.3 percent of men had experienced domestic violence at some time since the age of 16, which is equivalent to an estimated 4.9 million women and 2.7 million men in the country.

Moreover, according to the ONS, 7.1 percent of women and 4.4 percent of men reported domestic abuse in 2013, equivalent to 1.2 million female victims and 700,000 male ones.Around 2 percent of women and 0.5 percent of men also said they experienced some form of sexual assault in the last year.Separate figures compiled by the Crime Survey for England and Wales showed yesterday that the number of domestic violence crimes reported in the UK has increased almost 30 percent in the past 12 months.The opposition Labour Party has blamed the coalition government for letting down victims of domestic violence by keeping silent.

"If there was this level of violence at football matches, there would be a national outcry. Yet, all too often, domestic violence is ignored and hidden behind the net curtains, while victims of domestic abuse are met with silence," said Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.Cooper also warned against police job cuts, saying the scale of cuts mean specialist domestic violence units have been disbanded.She also blamed the British government over changes to legal aid, saying they have made it harder for abuse victims to take out injunctions against their abusers.