One in three Arab women fears violence within family

Arab women in Israel are several times more likely to fear being attacked by a family member than their Jewish counterparts, according to a study presented Tuesday during a special discussion marking International Women’s Day at the Knesset’s Committee for the Advancement of Women.

The study, conducted by Sheli Mizrachi-Simon of the Knesset’s Research and Information Center, shows Arab women are as much as five times more likely to fear domestic violence than women in the general population.

Only 6 percent of Israeli women fear being attacked by a family member, but that number climbs to 30% in the Arab community. A breakdown of those figures shows that 20% of Arab women fear physical attacks by family members, compared to 4% of all Israeli women and 19% of Arab woman fear sexual abuse by family members in contrast to 5% of all Israeli women.

The information used in the study were collected from a representative sample of 1,028 men and women over 18 years of age, divided equally by gender, social background and ethnicity, and addresses respondents’ sense of personal security as well as job and health security, according to Haaretz.

More than half of all respondents — 59% of women and 54% of men — expressed concern about being harmed by state institutions. Also here, concern is deeper within the Arab society: 74% of Arab women report fearing institutional harm compared to 51% of Haredi women and 49% of women from the former Soviet Union.

Twenty-nine percent of all women and 24% of men do not feel safe in turning to police in time of need.