Indicator 11.7.2 Proportion of persons victim of physical or sexual harassment, by sex, age, disability status and place of occurrence, in the previous 12 months

Percentage of persons who have experienced indecent exposure or unwanted sexual touching in the previous 12 months

England and Wales

Percentage (%)

Indecent exposure - examples of indecent exposure include flashing.

Unwanted sexual touching - being touched sexually whether it was agreed to or not (for example, groping, touching of breasts or bottom, and kissing). See chapter 5 of the user guide for definitions of sexual assault.

Disability Status - The (GSS) harmonised "core" definition identifies a person as disabled if they have a physical or mental health condition or illness that has lasted or is expected to last 12 months or more. It must reduce their ability to carry-out day-to-day activities. It is important to note that a person who has a long-term illness that does not reduce their ability to carry-out day-to-day activities is not disabled under the definition. The GSS harmonised questions are asked of the respondent in the survey, meaning that disability status is self-reported. The GSS definition is designed to reflect the definitions that appear in legal terms in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) for Northern Ireland and the 2010 Equality Act for Great Britain.

No calculations were performed in the data acquisition of this indicator as appropriate data was readily available in the final format specified by this indicator.

For details of the Crime Survey for England and Wales, see the user guide to crime statistics for England and Wales.

The year format refers to the two years covered by the data, from April of the first year to March of the following year. For example, 2018/19 covers the period of April 2018 to March 2019.

For further information on the quality of the estimates please refer to the source data which provides the unweighted base sizes of the samples. The sample size is lower between 2010/11 and 2012/13, and between 2017/18 and 2018/19 due to use of a split-sample experiment in these years. The methodological note titled Split sample for intimate personal violence 2013-14 provides further information.

New questions were introduced into the survey in 2010/11 and were further revised for the survey year 2012/13. Estimates from 2012/13 onwards are calculated using these new questions. Estimates for earlier years are calculated from the original questions with an adjustment applied to make them comparable to the new questions.

Prior to April 2017, data are only presented for people aged between 16 and 59. From April 2017, the upper age limit for the self-completion module was increased to ask all respondents aged 16 to 74 - these data can be viewed by changing the Units.

Fieldwork for the year to March 2020 was suspended two weeks early on Wednesday the 18th March 2020 just prior to the lockdown restrictions being announced by the Government on the 23rd March 2020. Estimates for the year to March were therefore unaffected by the lockdown restrictions.

The Washington Group on Disability Statistics are often used to provide a cross-nationally comparable population-based measures of disability. Please see the article Measuring disability - comparing approaches for a comparison between the GSS Harmonised measure (used here) and the Washington Group measure.

This indicator is being used as an approximation of the UN SDG Indicator. Where possible, we will work to identify or develop UK data to meet the global indicator specification. This indicator has been identified in collaboration with topic experts.