Queer people are more often affected by violence than others. This is one of the findings of the dark-figure study “Life Situation, Safety and Strain in Everyday Life (LeSuBiA)” conducted by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) in cooperation with the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs (PDF). The survey is based on around 15,000 representative interviews with people aged 16 to 85 and examines experiences of violence both inside and outside of intimate partnerships, regardless of whether they were reported to authorities — in the so-called “dark figure.” LeSuBiA is the first representative study on violence against women and men in Germany.
“The LeSuBiA study shows, based on a large number of cases, that members of the LSBTIQ*-community experience higher exposure to violence across all forms studied here than people who do not belong to the group,” the report states. For example, about 20 percent of queer respondents reported sexual assaults — among non-queer people it was only half as many. Even within partnerships, queer people are affected more across all queried areas — such as emotional or economic violence — than other people.
Overall, the study finds that women are affected by violence more than men. Other groups particularly disproportionately confronted with violence compared with the rest of the population are people with a migration background. Most alarming: most acts of violence go unreported. Only two percent of women report, for example, sexual harassment. Yet every second person in Germany says they have been sexually harassed at some point.
“Violence is not a fringe phenomenon; it affects millions of people in our country,” Federal Family Minister Karin Prien (CDU) said. “We must prevent violence before it happens. Blame and shame always lie with the perpetrators, never with those affected.”
The Government Has Recently Halted the Fight Against Queerphobia
However, the federal government is currently scaling back protections for queer people: the action plan against queer hostility will not be continued, as TheColu.mn reported. At the end of January, Prien defended this step with the argument that queer issues were not in the coalition agreement, as reported by TheColu.mn.
