More than half of women have experienced sexual violence, the consequences cost billions

More than half of Czech women have encountered some form of sexualized violence during their lifetime. Most of them knew the perpetrator. This was shown by the research of the organization proFem, which mapped in detail the occurrence of violence and its effects on the lives of the victims. Over five thousand women took part.

Experience with sexualized violence was reported by 58% of them. “I admit that this figure did not surprise me. But what was surprising to me was that the consequences are much more serious for victims of sexual violence before the age of 15, and as we know from our practice, women carry those consequences throughout their lives. And I didn’t expect that it would concern such a large percentage of women,” proFem Director Jitka Poláková tells Seznam Zprávy.

It refers to the fact that more than a fifth of victims encounter sexualized violence by the age of 15. At the same time, almost all (93%) state that this experience had a negative impact on their subsequent life. A quarter even had suicidal thoughts or attempted suicide.

“It is definitely more complicated for young girls to get professional help. Quite often it happens at this age that when the victims have not been exposed to good education in the field of sex education, they are dealing with the consequences alone and it takes them a long time to be able to ask for help, it is certainly much more difficult for them than for adult women,” says Poláková.

“Previous data already indicated that this is a very widespread problem. And so the anecdotal evidence—where nearly every woman you talk to about it will tell you a similar experience—reflects the data that came out of that research. At the same time, the numbers are simply terrifying when we see them on paper now,” comments Johanna Nejedlová from the Konsent organization, which also deals with the topic of sexualized violence, on the results of the study.

“Nevertheless, they are not exceptional in international comparison,” she continues, “it is necessary to realize that the more the issue is talked about, which is currently happening in Czech society, the more women, but also men, are able to use the right words for it , to describe their experience. Therefore, the more education we have, the more the numbers in the surveys grow. But that doesn’t mean that there is more harassment or rape here, it’s just that people are now able to put the right label on that unpleasant or traumatic experience,” he explains.

At the same time, research has shown that a fifth of Czech women have experienced rape during their lifetime (the study worked with the redefinition of the term rape, which was approved this April, editor’s note). However, half of the women did not confide in anyone or seek professional help.

“Definitely quite often they are held back by shame and they don’t want to come out and talk about what happened to them or who did it to them. Because, of course, when something happens to you, these questions will simply come to the doctor,” says Poláková, adding that women often want to protect their surroundings or the perpetrators themselves. Most of them (90%) knew him.

A third of women between the ages of 18 and 65 reported that sexual violence had a negative impact on their health. According to proFem, there are approximately 994,000 women in the current Czech population.

A third of women who reported that sexualized violence had some impact on them, but also did not seek medical help even when they needed it. “Taboo and stigma are an integral part of the whole phenomenon. The fact that women often do not talk about it with anyone, they are afraid to confide, they are ashamed of it. But at the same time, it is also necessary to emphasize that there is a complete lack of these services and they are missing, so this may also be the reason why women do not use the given services,” says Nejedlová from Konsent.

Most often, victims of sexualized violence suffer psychological consequences – typically anxiety, depression, post-traumatic syndrome or suicidal thoughts. The second most represented category are social impacts, which include, for example, interruption of studies, inability to work or loss of contact with loved ones.

However, according to Poláková, they are often downplayed and society generally tends not to take them into account. “Often we find that it is not seen as part of the problem. At the same time, when we are talking about the economic impact on the state or state institutions, this is quite obviously one of the main arguments that should be presented and that the state should be interested in,” says Poláková.

“We have clients who were afraid to leave the house, we had clients who had to quit their jobs or interrupt their studies because they were in such a terrible mental state that they were not able to concentrate on anything at all,” she describes her experience.

Physical impacts are represented in percentage units for all forms of sexualized violence. “That every victim carries physical injuries is one of the big fallacies that our analysis disproves. They are the tip of the iceberg that most often appear in the media and the like, but it really does not apply to the vast majority of those cases,” explains the head of proFem.

She adds that she was surprised by the percentage of women who are dealing with the effects on reproductive health, which includes, for example, a difficult possibility of becoming pregnant, sexually transmitted diseases or unplanned pregnancies.

As a separate category, the research also examined the occurrence of cyber-violence, which 22% of women encountered during their lifetime. Typically, these are situations where the perpetrator publishes intimate photos or publishes false information about the victim. “Then we also have cases related to deepfake videos, and of course we see that with the rise of artificial intelligence this is increasing and will continue to do so,” predicts Poláková.

“At the same time, for example, it has also happened to our clients that their ex-partner has published their phone number on some websites, saying that they provide sexual services. At the same time, it must be taken into account that even the trauma you experience in the digital world hurts just as much as the one that happens in the real world,” adds Poláková.

According to Poláková, an important part of the study was the calculation of the costs associated with the medical care of the victim. According to proFem, this corresponds to approximately 2.2 billion crowns annually, with the highest amount associated with the treatment of the psychological effects of violence.

However, seeking psychological help can be a long process, often with an unclear result. “This care is extremely important, but at the same time terribly unavailable, because there is a significant shortage of psychologists and psychiatrists in the Czech Republic overall, and if you want to get care that will be paid for by public health insurance, it is almost impossible,” says the expert.

At the same time, many victims cannot afford to finance psychological care from their own resources.

List The reports also tried to verify the amount of expenses associated with sexualized violence with health insurance companies. But they all stated that they did not have such statistics available.

“I think that Czech society understands quite well why we need to focus on cancer prevention, because it is an important social problem, but the phenomenon of sexual violence is no less widespread than, for example, health problems associated with cancer, but at the same time, in my opinion, we pay significantly less attention to it, ” says Nejedlová.

According to her, the Czech Republic can be inspired by looking at good examples of foreign practice.

“When we were on a study trip in Norway with my organization, we learned, for example, that every year they have a week there dedicated to the prevention of sexual violence, when the public media address this issue on all their channels, so that information really goes to both young children and adults and it leads to a massive increase in reported cases, which strikes me as something we should also strive for,” concludes the head of Consent.