Over 100,000 victims of domestic violence in 2014

The police figures show a rise in the number of domestic voilence cases, with the statistics revealing that over 90 percent of victims of domestic violence are women.

Among the 105,000 victims, 72,700 were women, with over 21,000 cases of abuse directed towards children, while 11,500 victims were men. However, the numbers reveal that of the 78,000 people suspected of domestic violence, 72,800 are men and only 5,300 are women.

“Violence is still a problem for many Polish families and unfortunately this problem is still concealed,” said police spokesman Mariusz Sokołowski.

Meanwhile, a poll undertaken by Ipsos for the Interior Ministry shows that one in seven Poles (14 percent) witnessed some sort of domestic violence in their families, with only two in five (42 percent) telling the authorities about the violent acts.

The majority of people who had witnessed some sort of domestic violence in the past year declared that it was of a psychological (75 percent) or physical (58 percent) nature. However, only eight percent of respondents said that they had witnessed sexual violence. (jb)

Source: PAP