Research

2019

The FRA-comparable anchor for Albania, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Ukraine and Moldova.

Ongoing

Istanbul Convention monitoring — country-by-country evaluations of what each state has put in place.

2013; 2022 repeat

Norway's national prevalence studies on violence and rape, run by the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies.

2008

Iceland's national survey on violence against women — dated, so figures are treated with caution.

2019

A national survey on sexual harassment and sexual violence in Switzerland.

2022 — ongoing

UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission reporting on conflict-related sexual violence in Ukraine.

Ongoing

Regional data on femicide, including Serbia, Albania and Montenegro.

Operation Soteria Bluestone

A police, prosecution and academic change programme that rebuilt how rape and serious sexual offences are investigated, shifting the focus from testing the victim's credibility to investigating the suspect. It produced a National Operating Model for all forces in England and Wales. A 2024 inspection found it is creating a more victim-centred culture, but that training and staffing are not yet in place everywhere.

Domestic Abuse Act 2021

Created a statutory definition of domestic abuse that includes coercive control and economic abuse, established a Domestic Abuse Commissioner, banned abusers from cross-examining victims in family courts, and created new offences including non-fatal strangulation.

Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme (Clare's Law)

Lets a person ask the police whether a partner has a history of abusive behaviour — and lets police tell someone proactively when they hold that information — so safety decisions can be made with the facts.

Domestic Abuse Protection Notices and Orders (DAPO)

Gives police and courts power to place immediate protective conditions on a perpetrator — no contact, exclusion from a home, electronic monitoring — without waiting for a criminal case to run its course.

The Drive Project

A case-managed, multi-agency response to high-harm perpetrators, combining support, disruption and enforcement rather than relying on the victim to act. An independent University of Bristol evaluation found reduced abusive behaviour and improved victim safety compared with usual practice.

Sexual Assault Care Centres (Zorgcentra na Seksueel Geweld)

Hospital-based centres open around the clock where forensic, medical and psychological care sit in one place — and where a person can make a police statement on site to specially trained officers, instead of retelling their account across several buildings.

Stop Féminicide Law

Belgium's first legal definitions of femicide, gender-based killing and coercive control. It also requires official statistics, risk-assessment tools, and mandatory training for police and magistrates.

Family Justice Centres / Veilige Huizen

Police, prosecutors, justice houses and social services work from the same building on cases of violence within families, with a case manager holding the whole picture instead of each agency holding a fragment.

Sistema VioGén

A national risk-assessment and case-tracking system used at the first police contact to classify the level of danger and trigger protection measures, then shared across police, courts, social services and prisons. Independent validation studies have tested and helped recalibrate its predictive performance.

Courts for Violence against Women

Specialised courts with trained judges, prosecutors, psychologists and social workers handling gender-violence cases committed by a partner or ex-partner, so criminal and related civil matters are dealt with together.

ATENPRO

A 24-hour tele-assistance and location service for women who have left an abuser, letting them call for immediate help from a single device.

Centrum Seksueel Geweld

One-stop centres open around the clock where forensic examination, medical care and psychological support are delivered together by hospitals, public health, mental health services, police and victim support.

Veilig Thuis

A national network for advice and reporting on domestic violence and child abuse, reachable free at any hour, which can take anonymous reports and coordinate referrals to police and social services.

MDA++ (multidisciplinary approach)

A specialist joint approach for households with severe, repeated or complex violence, bringing police, justice, healthcare, forensic medicine and youth protection around one case. A 2023 monitoring study found the approach is valued and identified what makes it work, while noting that regional variation makes overall effect hard to measure.

Téléphone Grave Danger

An emergency phone assigned by a prosecutor to people at serious risk, with a single alert button connected to round-the-clock assistance. Use has grown from under a thousand devices in 2019 to roughly five thousand in 2025.

Bracelet anti-rapprochement

An electronic device worn by the perpetrator that alerts police if they come within a set distance of the victim. Government-commissioned research found uneven use across courts, and deployment remains small relative to the number of reported cases.

Codice Rosso (Law 69/2019)

Requires police and prosecutors to hear a victim of domestic or gender-based violence within three days of a report and fast-tracks these cases through the system. It also strengthened penalties for stalking and sexual violence and created an offence of sharing intimate images without consent.

Violence Protection Act and Gewaltschutzzentren

Police can remove and bar a perpetrator from the home rather than expecting the victim to leave, and a violence protection centre in every federal state follows up proactively with support and safety planning. Since 2021, anyone subject to a barring order must attend violence-prevention counselling.

Cuan — the DSGBV agency

A dedicated state agency responsible for funding, standards, refuge capacity, research and prevention across domestic, sexual and gender-based violence services, created so that one body owns the national response.

Teleassistência for victims of domestic violence

A court-ordered protection measure giving victims a located device with round-the-clock psychosocial support and rapid police response, run by DGRSP with police protection.

Bjarkarhlíð family justice centre

Police, the city, social workers and specialist organisations under one roof in Reykjavík, so an adult survivor can get risk assessment, legal advice and support without repeating their account to each agency in turn. Reykjavík also runs a joint police–social-services first-response model (Saman gegn ofbeldi, since 2015).

Istanbul Convention and GREVIO monitoring

The Council of Europe treaty on preventing and combating violence against women, with an expert group that publishes country-by-country evaluations of what each state has actually put in place. Those reports are one of the clearest records of what works and what is missing.

EU Directive 2024/1385

The first EU-wide law on violence against women and domestic violence. It sets minimum rules on offences including cyberstalking, cyberharassment and sharing intimate images without consent, and requires accessible reporting, emergency barring orders and specialist support services.