wrans/answers2025-11-24 conversation_186
Source: hansard.parliament.uk (2025-11-24)

UK Parliament Hansard data: wrans/answers2025-11-24 conversation_186

Joe Morris:To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what data her Department holds on the number of reported incidents of violence against women and girls against under 16 year- olds in (a) Hexham constituency, (b) Northumberland, (c) Newcastle, (d) the North East, and (e) England. \p Jess Phillips: Violence against women and girls (VAWG) covers a range of crimes, including rape and other sexual offences, stalking, harassment, domestic abuse related offences, and many others that disproportionately affect women and girls.

It is important to note that VAWG is often a hidden crime. The figures provided below only reflect offences that come to the attention of the police and therefore do not represent the full extent of victimisation. For example, the ONS estimates that only 6.1% of victims of sexual assault (including attempts) in the year ending March 2025 told the police about the offence.

Table 1 below provides the requested breakdown of VAWG offences, where held, recorded by the police using several offence classifications which are listed in Table 2.

Data is available for Police Force Area (PFA) and Community Safety Partnership (CSP) Area geographies, which includes

Information is not held centrally broken down by parliamentary constituencies.

Table 1: Total offences across all VAWG offence classifications where the victim was under 16 years old, by geography, year ending June 2025

Geography

Total VAWG offences against under 16-year-olds

Rate per 1,000 under 16 population  (mid-2024 estimate)

Northumberland CSP

683

13.2

Newcastle upon Tyne CSP

541

9.9

North East

5,932

12.4

England (excl. 4 PFAs)

85,345

8.8

Source: Police recorded crime from the Home Office and ONS population estimates

Notes:

Table 2: VAWG offence classifications used in analysis

Rape offences:

19C Rape of a Female aged 16 and over

19D Rape of a Female Child under 16

19E Rape of a Female Child under 13

19F Rape of a Male aged 16 and over

19G Rape of a Male Child under 16

19H Rape of a Male Child under 13

19J Rape of a female - multiple undefined offenders

19K Rape of a male - multiple undefined offenders

Other sexual offences:

17A Sexual Assault on a Male aged 13 and over

17B Sexual Assault on a Male Child under 13

20A Sexual Assault on a Female aged 13 or over

20B Sexual Assault on a Female Child under 13

21 Sexual Activity involving a Child under 13

22A Causing Sexual Activity without Consent

22B Sexual Activity involving a Child under 16

23 Incest or Familial Sexual Offences

70 Sexual Activity etc. with a Person with a Mental Disorder

71 Abuse of Children through Sexual Exploitation

73 Abuse of Position of Trust of a Sexual Nature

88A Sexual Grooming

88C Other Miscellaneous Sexual Offences

88D Unnatural Sexual Offences

88E Exposure and Voyeurism

Stalking and harassment:

8L Harassment

8Q Stalking

8U Controlling or coercive behaviour

Miscellaneous crimes:

24 Exploitation of prostitution

27 Soliciting for the purpose of prostitution

Violence against the person offences:

36 Kidnapping and False Imprisonment: subcode 036/05 Forced Marriage

8N Assault with injury: subcode 008/52 Excise, infibulate, aid, abet, counsel

8N Assault with injury: subcode 008/68 Fail to protect girl from risk of genital mutilation

Note:

As well as the above specific offences classifications, VAWG also encompasses non-specific offences which have been flagged as VAWG-related. These include:

However, the definition of domestic abuse in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 requires both the victim and perpetrator are aged 16 years or above and so data on child victims are not included in the data provided.

Forces are only required to submit aggregate level data on ‘honour-based’ abuse flagged offences, so information on victim ages are not available for all offences. However, any ‘honour-based’ abuse flagged offence recorded under the VAWG offence classifications in Table 2 (such as Forced Marriage) will already be captured in the figures provided.