The election of Donald Trump as the President of the USA “will make misogynistic attitudes acceptable again”, a Dwyfor Meirionnydd MS has said, as the Senedd heard that domestic violence against women and girls is the “scourge of Wales” and a “national emergency.”

Mabon ap Gwynfor said Welsh police reported more than 45,000 cases of domestic abuse in 2022/23 and almost 10,000 sexual offences the previous year, with many more unrecorded.

Leading a Senedd debate, the Plaid Cymru politician challenged a tendency to believe rural Wales is an exception, with domestic abuse “limited” to urban areas only.

“The evidence shows otherwise,” he said.

“Rates of domestic abuse in north Wales are higher than those in the city of London.

“North Wales even faces the same level of sexual crimes as Greater Manchester, which has a population five times the size.”

Mr ap Gwynfor added: “I am afraid the election of President Trump in the US is going to make things much worse as he makes misogynistic attitudes acceptable again.”

He told the Senedd that 16 children per 1,000 in north Wales are being seen by sexual assault referral centres compared with a rate of 2.9 per 1,000 in London.

Mr ap Gwynfor said the NSPCC found one in five children have experienced domestic violence, with Childline Cardiff holding 4,000 counselling sessions in the past year.

Calling for urgent devolution, he warned that prosecution statistics suggest sexual violence has effectively been legalised, with victims let down and public trust eroded.

Labour’s Joyce Watson said a vigil will be held outside the Senedd on 25 November to mark White Ribbon Day, the international day for ending violence against women and children, and highlighted her party’s pledge to halve violence against women and girls over the next decade.

She told the Senedd: “It is a national threat and it is an epidemic.”

Responding to the debate on 13 November, social justice secretary Jane Hutt pointed to progress made in tackling violence against women and girls but she recognised “so much more needs to be done”.

She highlighted statistics from July showing that two million women in the UK are victims of male violence every year.

She described domestic violence as a national emergency, with one woman killed by a man every three days and the number of recorded offences up 37 per cent in the past five years.