Prevalence of Domestic Violence

•Estimates range from 960,000 incidents of violence against a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend per year1 to three million women who are physically abused by their husband or boyfriend per year.

•Around the world, at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime.

• Nearly one-third of American women (31 percent) report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives

•Nearly 25 percent of American women report being raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or date at some time in their lifetime

•Thirty percent of Americans say they know a woman who has been physically abused by her husband or boyfriend in the past year.

•Intimate partner violence is primarily a crime against women.

•Women accounted for 85 % of the intimate partner violence (588,490 total) and men accounted for 15 % of the victims

•While women are less likely than men to be victims of violent crimes overall, women are five to eight times more likely than men to be victimized by an intimate partner.