Truth or tale: are foreign women more violent than Swiss men?
Series Truth or tale,
Episode 12:
Ahead of the population cap vote, the right-wing Swiss People’s Party claimed on social media that foreign women are more violent than Swiss men. But is that what the official statistics show?
In the run-up to the June 14 vote, the People’s Party shared a post on social mediaExternal link stating that “foreign women commit more assaults than Swiss men”.
The post went on to link domestic violence to immigration, claiming that official statistics from the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) show that the rate per 10,000 people in 2024 was higher among foreign women (13.2) than among Swiss men (12.6). Swiss public broadcaster RTSExternal link investigated the figures.
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However, when considering the absolute numbers, the picture is clear: men commit most domestic violence offences. Experts also say figures on serious crime and homicide are more relevant and they show that Swiss men carried out most of these offences in 2024.
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Both the FSO and the experts Swissinfo spoke to cautioned that the figures cover only cases recorded by the police and do not account for other factors such as age, socio-economic status or family and living conditions. “This tells us far more about what the police do than about society itself,” says Faten Khazaei, assistant professor at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Northumbria University, who has researched how Swiss police deal with domestic violence cases.
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Dirk Baier, a professor at the Criminological Institute at the University of Zurich, says the domestic violence rate per 10,000 inhabitants is misleading, as it essentially compares mostly young foreign women with generally older Swiss men. “It’s like comparing apples and pears,” he says.
A second reason the figure isn’t indicative is that domestic violence mainly occurs within relationships, so it would be more accurate to base the data on people who are in partnerships. “When we look at serious cases of domestic violence, and specifically femicide, the most dangerous place for a woman is her own home,” says Khazaei.
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Domestic violence in Switzerland and abroad
The figures cited by the People’s Party are only the tip of the iceberg, as most domestic violence cases go unreported, due to low reporting rates of around 10 to 20%. Baier also notes that rates for foreign nationals are often higher because such cases are more likely to be reported. “Migration in itself has nothing to do with crime in general, not just domestic violence,” he explains.
“Nationality is not a risk factor, as domestic violence exists in all countries and across all social milieux,” Khazaei adds.
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Several factors contribute to domestic violence, including socio-economic conditions, stress, unemployment and isolation, but most importantly gender.
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“It’s important to remember that domestic violence is first and foremost a gender issue, as it is mainly perpetrated by men against women in a context of sexist inequality,” Khazaei explains. She also thinks focusing on the gender issue is the key to combating domestic violence. “Spain, for example, has a more gender-sensitive legal response with specialised courts and they have seen a declineExternal link in recorded gender-based violence cases in 2024 and 2025.”
‘Institutional racism also harms Swiss victims’
In 2022, Khazaei conducted extensive research into the Swiss police response to domestic violence. “There is definitely some structural racism, not just within the police force but across institutions more broadly, and I argue that this ultimately harms all victims of domestic violence, including Swiss women.”
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Her studyExternal link of an emergency police unit in a French-speaking canton of Switzerland found that officers were more likely to escalate cases where the perpetrator was foreign, leading to more urgent support and protection for the victim, while taking a more relaxed approach when the perpetrator was Swiss.
“This ultimately means it may be harder for Swiss women whose perpetrators do not fit institutional racial stereotypes to have their cases heard in court,” she says.
Foreign women are not more violent than Swiss men
The FSO statistics do not suggest that foreign women are more violent than Swiss men overall. “We need to take reporting behaviour and different risk factors into account. If we did that properly, it would be very clear that Swiss men pose a greater risk than foreign women,” Baier concludes.
Edited by Marc Philipp Leutenegger/sb
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