Around 80% of victims of gender‑based violence in the EU still do not report these crimes to the police.

Error detected

The claimed figure of 'around 80%' underestimates the actual non-reporting rate. The EU gender-based violence survey found that 86.1% of victims did not report incidents to the police — a difference of 6.1 percentage points, exceeding the 5pp threshold for a clear underestimation.

Conversely, this means only about 13.9% of victims report to the police (just over 1 in 8), not approximately 20% (1 in 5) as the MEP's figure would imply.

Omissions

• The MEP did not cite a specific source or survey for the figure.
• The most recent and authoritative EU-wide data comes from the EU gender-based violence survey (wave 2021), whose results were published from November 2024 onwards. The exact non-reporting rate found was 86.1%.
• The FRA publication citing the 86.1% figure is dated 2026; while the underlying survey wave is from 2021 and results were publicly available from 2024, the specific 2026 FRA report may postdate the MEP's speech of May 2026. However, the same data had already been disseminated by Eurostat and EIGE in 2024-2025.

Sources

• PrimaryEU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA)86.1% did not report incidents of violence to the police and 79.5% did not report it to health or social services.
• PrimaryEuropean Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE)Just over 1 in 8 women who experienced violence reported the incident to the police.
• PrimaryEurostat — Statistics ExplainedBased on the EU gender-based violence survey (wave 2021), 20% of women have experienced physical (including threats) or sexual violence by a non-partner. At EU level, only a small proportion of women who experience violence report it to the police or support services.