8 cases of sexual violence against women recorded in 2015

Manama : The Supreme Council for Women (SCW) has announced that only eight cases of sexual violence against women have been officially recorded in Bahrain in 2015, which is contrary to what was published in a local newspaper on 6 March 2016 based on a questionnaire conducted on a random sample of less than 300 women.

955 cases of physical, verbal, economic and psychological violence officially recorded in 2015 against wives within family relationships, which represents less than 1% of the total number of married women in Bahrain, among which 579 cases of physical violence and 93 cases of verbal violence.

The SCW noted that its participation in We Respect Her Festival aimed at promoting anti-domestic violence, but not to take part in the questionnaire which its result was published.

The SCW explained that despite the issuance of anti-domestic violence strategy based on defining the cases of violence that are consistent with the law on the protection from domestic violence, yet there are many private organizations do not commit to those definitions and conduct general questionnaires for women, as in the case of the questionnaire conducted by We Respect Her Festival. Therefore, the SCW reiterates its call for finding a unified database to identify cases of domestic violence against women to ensure accuracy of statistics of cases of domestic violence in Bahrain.