Poll: 40% of women victims of domestic violence

Prague, Oct 2 (CTK) - Two-fifths of women in the Czech Republic have faced some form of domestic violence, according to a poll, ordered by the proFem organisation for its study, that sociologist Kamil Kunc presented at a conference in the Senate yesterday.

The most frequent forms of domestic violence are repeated humiliation and physical attacks followed by sexual oppression, dangerous stalking and threats, the poll shows.

"Some 1.4 million women in the (10.5-million) Czech Republic, have ever experienced domestic violence," Kunc said.

A total of 11 percent of respondents faced domestic violence in the past year. Up to 400,000 women in the country are annually threatened with domestic violence, he added.

A quarter of these women kept the latest attack secret, only 10 percent reported it to the police, 8 percent sought a psychologist, 5 percent sought health care or turned to a lawyer and 3 percent talked to a social worker. Only 1 percent of domestic violence victims asked a specialised organisation for help.

The women mostly told their friends or colleagues at work about the problem.

Thirteen percent of the polled called the police over domestic violence. Policemen solved most cases by a reprimand but they also imposed a fine, detained the attacker on the offender and expelled him from the flat.

In 2010, the police expelled 1000 men from their homes over domestic violence and they investigated 457 such cases, but only 2 percent of them were brought to court.

Women suffered an injury or a psychological trauma in three-fifths of the latest cases of domestic violence. They concern some 230,000 women a year.

However, only 32 percent of these women sought a doctor, 3 percent were hospitalised, 6 percent were on sick leave afterwards and 4 percent lost their jobs as a consequence of the attack.

Most of the polled consider 50,000 crowns an adequate financial compensation for the caused emotional harm. However, the average compensation for long-term domestic violence should amount to 270,000 crowns, according to the poll.

Experts consider it a warning signal that only 55 percent of women qualified their partners' latest attack domestic violence though it met its parameters.

The poll, including 22 questions, was conducted by the NMS Market Research agency on 3014 women aged 18-65 in February.

($1=19.470 crowns)