Czech domestic violence costs over one billion crowns

The biggest proportion of the sum, 546 million crowns, was constituted by health care for victims of domestic violence, the study says.

The study enumerates court costs at 210 million crowns and subsidies for social services at 190 million crowns.

The remaining money was spent on the costs of the police, state attorney's offices, petty offences dealt with by local authorities and sickness pay.

Sociologist Kamil Kunc, main drafter of the study, said the sum was rather conservative as some costs could not be relevantly quantified.

The study does not include disability pensions, spending on drugs, legal services and lost wages.

A similar Austrian study reckoned with the costs of lost earnings. It estimates the total costs at 78 million euros on the basis of the data from 2004 and 2005.

Unlike an analogous survey conducted in Britain in 2001 and 2008, human and emotional costs were not included, which means financial compensation for long-standing troubles and difficulties due to domestic violence.

Based on a survey conducted on a sample of 3,000 women, Czech experts estimated these costs at 19.25 billion crowns.

As the survey was being processed for roughly a year, the researchers used the data from two years ago. They had to combine the data from the labour and social affairs, justice and interior ministries.

They also used expert estimates when quantifying the sums.

The study is to help fulfil the government National Action Plan of Prevention of Domestic Violence. It has set an analysis of the economic impact of domestic violence that is to be completed in 2014 as one of its tasks.

($1 = 19.470 crowns)

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz