‘An Extensive Human Rights Abuse That The EU Cannot Afford To Overlook’ – Estimating The Financial Cost Of Violence Against Women

A new survey published by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) in the first week of March revealed one in three women in Europe have suffered some form of violence, sexual or physical, in her lifetime.

The report, which attempted to assess both the extent and nature of abuse against women in the EU, found that one in 10 women had been subjected to some form of sexual violence since they turned 15, and one in 20 had been raped.

The largest of its kind, the survey involved more than 42,000 women across 28 member states, and addressed issues such as stalking, the role of new technologies in harassment, domestic or ‘intimate partner’ violence, and psychological abuse, as well as long-term effects on victims.

Timed for release shortly before the International Women’s Day 2014, the results have been hailed as shocking.

Morten Kjaerum, director of FRA commented:

And he is right. Despite provoking the customary media storm around policy, policing methods and legislation, considerations of the financial cost to governments of violence against women, as well as broader gender inequality, were widely overlooked.

And yet, the economic impact is substantial to say the least. Take the example of the UK.

In 2008, the New Philanthropy Capital, a London-based think tank and consultancy, published a report into violence against women in the UK on behalf of the Government’s Equalities Office.

On the basis of data from the Department for Trade and Industry, the report found violence against women in Britain costs society £40 billion a year, more than government spending on either education or military defence in 2013.

Below is a breakdown of the calculated £20 billion cost of domestic violence against women across the UK and Wales in 2008.

Source: ‘Hard Knock Life – Violence Against Women: A Guide for Donors and Funders’ by Jarvinen, J., Kail, A., Miller, I. (2008) New Philanthropy Capital

As evidenced by the data, the loss of economic output due to domestic violence totals over £2o billion, a sum equivalent to the government’s expenditure on foreign military aid in 2013.

The report was also able to match a financial value to the ‘human and emotional’ cost of abuse, using economic choice modelling and ‘willingness to pay’ experiments, which work by estimating the value of what individuals would be willing to pay for a small decrease in the chance of such an event occurring.

Predictably, the human and emotional price of violence considerably outweighs other costs to society, including that of providing increased public services (health, legal, social), but the lack of data available on the cost of the long-term negative emotional and mental impact on victims means the figures are probably underestimates.

Sexual abuse is also a socially expensive phenomenon, with the Home Office estimating in 2007 that each rape that occurred in the year 2003-2004 cost the British population over £76,000, primarily in long term health issues and lost output.

The UK’s figures are far from unique, and similar studies in other Union states confirm the high price of gender violence. In Denmark, for example, a 2010 report by the National Institute of Public Health found that violence against women costs Danish society €70 million a year.

Numbers such as these are often leveraged by international organisations such as the EU and the UN, as well as by charities and interest groups in their attempts to persuade national governments to put violence against women at the forefront of their policy efforts.

However, obstacles in quantifying different aspects of the phenomenon mean precise figures are difficult to obtain. The issue of lost output is a particularly difficult to quantify, yet an important concept. How is it possible to measure the opportunity cost, for example, of the successful career a woman who succumbed to depression following an assault?

Another cost estimate which is difficult to obtain is that of the well-documented long-term effects on children who are witnesses to abuse, from the heightened propensity for boys to act out violence in later life, to the increased risk for girls of becoming victims themselves.

In a 2013 interview with the BBC, Caroline Anstey, then Managing Director of the World Bank,  spoke of the links established by medical research between exposure to violence as a child and health problems in later life.

“American children from a violent home are two to three times more likely to suffer from cancer, a stroke or heart disease and five to 10 times more likely to abuse alcohol,” she said, warning that any price estimate of violence had to include the future cost to national health systems.

A legacy of violence means that future generations may continue to foot the bill for current abuses.

In terms of political and democratic cost, furthermore, the inequality which lies at the root of figures on gender-specific violence could cause women to question whether they truly are represented by their government, or included in their society.

Discrepancy between the number of crimes occurred and those reported also suggests a lack of faith in the police and institutions’ ability to help victims, further compounding the idea that in any country in which abuse constitutes an unflinching reality for so many, concepts such as citizenship, social responsibility, and participation must risk being called into question.

Speaking in March 2013, Antsey urged the need for an immediate ‘conversation about a price tag’, stating:

“This isn’t just domestic violence,” she concluded, ”it is ultimately national violence and it hurts us all.”

A hint of perversion colours the idea that the monetary cost of violence against women may hold the key to raising the issue on policy agendas.

“In a perfect world we would not need to put a price tag on domestic violence to get it to stop. It would stop because it is wrong,” commented Antsey.

And yet, “In our imperfect world, it may be precisely that price tag that will finally persuade policymakers, communities and societies to take domestic violence seriously.”

Until this happens, women and girls will continue to bear the cost on their minds and bodies.