Overview

• The estimate covers the year to March 2025 and accounts for about 5.1 million adults, down from 5.4 million (11.3%) in the previous year.
• Women’s victimisation stood at 12.8% compared with 8.4% for men, equating to 3.2 million women and nearly 2 million men.
• It marks the first time the Crime Survey for England and Wales has combined domestic abuse, sexual assault and stalking into a single prevalence measure.
• Ministers will embed the baseline in a forthcoming cross-departmental strategy to track progress on the pledge to halve violence against women and girls by 2035.
• Advocates such as Refuge warn that chronic underfunding of frontline support services could undermine the strategy’s impact.