According to current survey by STEM Institute for Empirical Research, 17% of Czech men and women have personal experience of domestic partner violence. It is even more common to encounter it indirectly – one in five people in the Czech Republic report that it involves someone in their family. Statistics also show that women experience partner violence almost twice as often as men (22% of women compared to 12% of men).

And violence does not have to take the form of visible physical attacks.

• 25% of people have experienced psychological violence,
• 24% with physical violence,
• 7% with sexual violence.

Other forms are often less conspicuous but equally destructive:

• 18% of adults have experienced controlling behaviour from a partner,
• 13% with economic violence.

Alarmingly, 3% of adults in the Czech Republic have been afraid to go home in the last 12 months because of domestic violence. This translates into approximately 260 000 people for whom home is not a safe place. At the same time, every second adult in the Czech Republic has at least heard of someone in a similar situation.

Domestic violence is thus not a marginal problem of a few individuals. It is a reality that affects thousands of families – and very often children who are silent witnesses or direct victims.

At the Tereza Maxová Foundation, we have long supported projects that help children growing up in an environment of violence and insecurity. We know how deeply children carry the traces of such experiences into the rest of their lives.

Domestic violence is not a private matter that can be turned a blind eye to. It is important to talk about it, to notice the signals in your environment and not to be indifferent. Because a safe home is a basic condition for a healthy childhood.