Sexual Violence against Women in Germany: Prevalence and Risk Markers

Deborah F. Hellmann, Max W. Kinninger and Sören Kliem
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Deborah F. Hellmann: University of Applied Administrative Sciences NRW, 47269 Duisburg, Germany
Max W. Kinninger: Department of International Public Law and Comparative Law, Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, 79085 Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
Sören Kliem: Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony, 30161 Hannover, Germany

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 8, 1-19

Abstract: Previous research has repeatedly shown that gender-based violence affects a considerable proportion of women in any given population. Apart from providing current estimates of the prevalence of sexual violence against women in Germany, we identified specific risk markers applying an advanced statistical method. We analyzed data from a survey of N = 4450 women representative of the German population, conducted by the Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony in 2011. Lifetime prevalence for experiencing sexual violence was 5.4% for women aged 21–40 years (five-year prevalence: 2.5%). Non-parametric conditional inference tree (C-Tree) analyses revealed that physical and sexual abuse during childhood as well as being divorced, separated, or widowed was the most informative constellation of risk markers, increasing the five-year prevalence rate of experienced sexual violence victimizations up to 17.0%. Furthermore, knowing about the official penalization of marital rape was related to a lower victimization risk for women without a history of parental violence. Possible explanations for these findings as well as implications for future research are critically discussed.

Keywords: rape; rape victim; rape survivor; victimization risk; child maltreatment; conditional inference trees; representative victim survey (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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