The Canton of Zürich has expanded its domestic violence monitoring platform with new data that lays bare the scale of the problem more clearly than ever before.
The police in the canton now respond to domestic violence in Zürich more than 21 times a day. This figure shows the persistent, widespread nature of violence within families and intimate partnerships.
The updated figures, published on the canton’s monitoring platform “Häusliche Gewalt in Zahlen” (Domestic Violence in Numbers), draw on data from multiple sources, including the cantonal police, forensic nurses, victim support services, women’s shelters, the public prosecutor’s office, and, for the first time, the cantonal supreme court and district attorneys.
“Rape is the most frequently reported serious crime”
Three-quarters Of Perpetrators In Domestic Contexts Are Men
The expanded dataset provides a fuller picture of both the frequency and the gendered nature of domestic violence. The canton’s monitoring shows that around one in three people recorded by police as perpetrators of a violent offence are in a domestic or family relationship with their victim. Roughly three-quarters of perpetrators in domestic contexts are men, a figure that has remained relatively stable over time.
Victims, meanwhile, are overwhelmingly female. Three out of four people affected by domestic violence are women, according to the city of Zürich’s statistics. More than 80% of women experience domestic violence within an existing or former partnership, while more than a third of male victims experience violence within the family or parent-child relationship.
The data shows that most perpetrators of domestic violence are aged between 30 and 49, with fewer cases recorded among teenagers and people over 60. A significant proportion of women recorded as perpetrators are themselves victims — appearing in the data both as perpetrators and victims in cases of mutual violence or self-defence. For men, this dual role is far less common.
The canton’s platform also aggregates data on interventions and support services, including protection orders, counselling for perpetrators, and victim assistance. It shows that the justice system responds to domestic violence with a combination of criminal procedure, protective measures, and longer-term behavioural interventions for perpetrators.
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Reporting Gaps: Only Fraction Of All Domestic Violence In Zürich Cases Appear In Official Statistics
The new data also highlights that severe violence, while less common, occurs every year. Homicide numbers remain low, but serious assault and rape cases in domestic settings have shown an upward trend in recent years. At the national level, the Federal Statistical Office recorded a sharp rise in serious violent crimes in 2025, including a notable increase in completed homicides, with more than half occurring in the domestic sphere.
The monitoring platform also makes clear that only a fraction of all domestic violence cases appear in official statistics. For sexual violence, fewer than one in ten cases are reported to authorities; for assault and bodily harm, only around one in three. This means that the recorded figures represent only the visible tip of the iceberg.
The monitoring platform was launched in June 2025 and is now updated annually, with the next refresh due in June 2027.
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