If you\u2019re determined to find data that confirms a crisis, it\u2019s easy enough: just keep adjusting until the numbers fit your narrative.<\/p>\n
In the West, there is rightly much focus on ending violence against women and girls. According to the UN<\/a>, an estimated 736 million women globally have experienced physical and\/or sexual violence at least once in their lives. To effectively combat this issue, reliable data is essential.<\/p>\n In November 2022, European media sounded the alarm over an epidemic of gender-based violence in universities across the continent, citing findings from the EU-funded UniSAFE survey<\/a>. The startling statistic: 62% of respondents reported experiencing some form of gender-based violence. The implication was stark \u2014 European campuses appeared more perilous than a midnight walk through Kabul.<\/p>\n But how solid was this evidence? At first glance, UniSAFE looked impressive. It boasted that it was \u201cthe largest survey of its kind\u201d, with 42,055 respondents from 46 universities across Europe. But the headlines conveniently skipped the embarrassing detail that only 3.9% of those contacted actually replied to the questionnaire, with this figure dropping to just 2.7% among students. Normally, responsible researchers would quietly discard such dismal data.<\/p>\n However, those at UniSAFE pressed ahead, using vague measurements that counted nearly anything short of an explicit \u201cno\u201d as a case of gender-based violence. An awkward joke, a lingering glance: almost anything could qualify. Crucially, this survey lacked documented psychometric validation and had no clear timeframe, making its results unreliable.<\/p>\n Lisa, a Swedish psychologist and senior member of UniSAFE\u2019s statistical team, quickly spotted the flaws. Alarmed by how casually the team treated its shaky numbers, she voiced concerns internally. She wasn\u2019t alone: senior researchers, including Karin Dahlman-Wright from the Karolinska Institute and UniSAFE\u2019s own quantitative analyst Christina Bj\u00f6rklund, shared her discomfort.<\/p>\n When Lisa pressed her bosses at Sweden\u2019s National Secretariat for Gender Research about why they highlighted the sensational 62% figure rather than more credible data (like the validated COPSOQ measure, which found just 3.5% reported harassment), her questions were brushed aside.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve researched women\u2019s vulnerability my whole career,\u201d Lisa told me. \u201cBut it has to be done correctly. When I saw how the numbers were presented, I knew something was fundamentally wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n Ironically, Fredrik Bondestam, the senior Swedish researcher overseeing UniSAFE\u2019s methodology, had previously warned about precisely this issue. In a 2018 government-sponsored report<\/a>, Bondestam cautioned that harassment prevalence figures varied wildly from 2% to 93% depending entirely on methodological choices. Yet by 2022, he enthusiastically promoted UniSAFE\u2019s inflated numbers without caveat, conveniently securing around \u20ac2 million in additional EU funding for a follow-up project aptly named \u201cGenderSAFE\u201d.<\/p>\n But none of these inconvenient truths made it into the polished PowerPoint slides for Brussels. At a high-profile EU conference in Prague in November 2022, Bondestam and colleague Sofia Strid unveiled their findings. Bondestam declared: \u201cWe have the data on prevalence in place [\u2026] there are no more excuses for keeping silent or passive.\u201d Strid insisted that gender-based violence had become \u201ca near-normalised part\u201d of academic culture, again invoking the \u201ctwo in three\u201d statistic.<\/p>\n Bondestam ratcheted up the rhetoric further: \u201cCombating gender-based violence as a mandatory EU requirement needs to be put in place now. This is not optional.\u201d The actual UniSAFE report projected behind them, but which the audience couldn\u2019t properly read, quietly admitted the real response rate was 3.9%.<\/p>\n