Administrative Data Collection on Violence against Women, including Domestic Violence, in the Council of Europe Member States (2007-2008)

Background information

The study assessed the collection of administrative data by Council of Europe member states, identified legal and practical obstacles to enhanced data collection and issued recommendations to all member states on how to set up a model system to collect such data. The project was financed by the Council of Europe.

The study was started by mapping the situation of administrative data collection on domestic violence against women in Finland. Based on this information a questionnaire on administrative data sources in all Council of Europe member states was drafted. The questionnaire comprises several sections that contain questions on authorities and agencies that work with the issue of domestic violence. Some of the Council of Europe member states were visited by HEUNI staff during the study in order to gain more detailed information on administrative data recording in these countries. These countries were Spain, Switzerland, France, Sweden and Czech Republic.

Some main recommendations were that data collection should be disaggregated by sex and age of the victim and perpetrator, the type of violence as well as by the relationship of the perpetrator to the victim. These are the minimum requirements for data collection and should be recorded in one way or another in all agencies working with violence against women.

The research report was published by the Council of Europe in 2008.