Mayor of Reykjavík Dagur B. Eggertsson and Chief of the Reykjavík Metropolitan Police Sigríður Björk Guðjónsdóttir signed an agreement on joint measures to counteract domestic violence and improve services and work methods when dealing with such cases on Monday.
The goal with the cooperation is to improve the distribution of information and work methods when dealing with cases of domestic violence to guarantee the safety of residents in their homes, provide better service to the victims and actors of domestic violence, as well as improve the condition of children living with domestic violence, as stated in a press release from the City of Reykjavík.
A study on violence against women carried out by the University of Iceland’s ICE-CCFR research and educational institution on behalf the Ministry for Social Affairs in 2010, concluded that 22 percent of women in Iceland had been subject to violence in an intimate relationship at some point after the age of 16.
In 2013, Reykjavík Metropolitan Police received 593 notifications on domestic disturbances in the capital, of which 438 cases were registered as conflicts and 155 as violence.
The City of Reykjavík Department of Child Protection received 69 notifications of domestic disturbances at homes with children from January to August 2014, of which 54 were made by the police.
No studies have been carried out in Iceland on domestic violence men are subject to, as pointed out on the police’s website.
