Eurostat presented statistics about the prevalence of violence experienced by the population in 11 EU countries: Belgium, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal and Slovenia.
The violence experienced by women and men includes threats, physical or sexual violence perpetrated by intimate partners and non-partners. The survey also covered psychological violence perpetrated by intimate partners, sexual harassment experienced in the work environment, stalking and violent experiences during childhood.
As far as Latvia is concerned, the figures are a mixed bag. 22.5% of the Latvian population has has experienced threatening, physical or sexual violence in adulthood – and the figures are in all cases considerably higher among women than men.
Regarding sexual assault, in 2022 according to national police data, on average 64.2 women per 100 000 women were the victim of sexual assault in the EU. The number of male victims of sexual assault based on police data was 6 times lower – 10.9 per 100 000 men. Latvia’s equivalent figures were well below the EU average, as shown by the graph below.
However, there seems to be little room for complacency as 30% of Latvian women said they had been victims of psychological, threatening, physical or sexual violence. Among men the figure was 17%.
The percentage of women who have ever had a partner and who have repeatedly experienced physical (including threats) or sexual violence committed by their partner, ranges from 25% in Finland to 8% in Portugal. In Latvia the figure is 14%.
Out of those people who are working at present or who had worked previously, the percentages of those people who have experienced sexual harassment at work ranges from 20% of men in Slovenia to 5% in Latvia and from 54% of women in Finland to 11% in Latvia.
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