Information for the Media

Media Release
Violence against women: a summary of key statistics
Facts and Stats
Further information
Reference

Office for Women receives regular feedback on this website. We have received some concerns regarding the content and the context in which the data has been expressed. We have taken account of these concerns and comments and have made revisions to the content of the website. The website was updated on 21 May 2010.

We will continue to monitor feedback received and update data on a regular basis as new data becomes available. Further information on the management of data provided on this website is noted below under the heading Data Limitations.

Media Release

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Media Release - Introduction of Legislation & Launch of Campaign (pdf, 95KB)

Violence against women: a summary of key statistics

Terminology

The term ‘violence against women’ is inclusive of the wide range of forms of violence experienced by women. The statistics listed on this website are derived from a number of sources that may use different terminology and definitions of domestic violence, family violence, sexual assault, intimate partner violence and violence against women.

The United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (1993) defines violence against women as: ‘any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.’

The term Indigenous or Indigenous Australians includes both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and is only used on this website when directly quoted from a source using that terminology. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander is the preferred terminology in South Australia.

Data Limitations

It should be noted that Australian data regarding violence against women is limited. Information is not collected consistently across jurisdictions, and where data exists, there are many limitations such as under-reporting and over-reliance on data not supported by in-depth, detailed research.

Where possible, Australian data and South Australian data will be the focus of statistics. Where data is unavailable, data from other Australian states and international sources will be used. All data will be cited back to its original source.

For further detailed information it is recommended that the original data source is accessed. Updates will be made to the website as new data becomes available.

Facts and Stats

The focus of this website is on the development of respectful relationships. Therefore, information provided on this page focuses on an analysis of community attitudes, as well as prevalence data.

Formally released in April 2010, the National Survey on Community Attitudes to Violence Against Women supports the need for community education campaigns that focus on how to develop respectful relationships. The key findings of the survey are outlined below.

National Survey on Community Attitudes to Violence Against Women (NCAS) (2009) ¹

The National Survey on Community Attitudes to Violence Against Women 2009 (NCAS) focuses on community attitudes towards interpersonal forms of gender-based violence as they affect women. The survey conducted by the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) and funded by the Australia Government, involved approximately 13,000 men and women from across Australia and included Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people from culturally diverse communities and a sample of 16 and 17 year old respondents.

There were three key components to the National Survey:

Telephone interviews with over 10,000 people across Australia about their attitudes towards violence against women, with a minimum of 1,000 interviews conducted in each state/territory. The 2009 survey included 16 and 17-year-old respondents (where a parent consented).
Telephone interviews with an additional 2,500 first and second generation members of the Italian, Greek, Chinese, Vietnamese and Indian communities (known as the ‘selected culturally and linguistically diverse’ or ‘SCALD’).
Face-to-face interviews with 400 Indigenous Australians conducted in nine metropolitan and regional locations across Australia.

The results were compared with an equivalent national survey conducted in 1995 (Office of the Status of Women 1995, "Community attitudes to violence against women: detailed report", Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, AGPS, Canberra) to examine changes in attitudes over time.

In examining community attitudes towards violence against women, NCAS uses the term ‘violence against women’ and a range of other terms including ‘domestic violence’, ‘family violence’, ‘rape’ and ‘sexual assault’, and ‘sexual harassment’. This was done both to examine attitudes towards particular forms of violence against women and to reflect the diversity of terms in use in communities and scholarly circles.

A copy of the report from the VicHealth website is available here: http://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/Resource-Centre/Publications-and-Resources/Freedom-from-violence/National-Community-Attitudes-towards-Violence-Against-Women-Survey-2009.aspx

The main findings as identified in the Fact Sheet are provided below: ²:

Most people in the community have a broad understanding of domestic and sexual violence and its impacts, and do not condone it.
Since 1995, there have been some significant and positive shifts in the general community’s attitudes and beliefs towards violence against women.
This overall trend is encouraging and provides the impetus for continuing to improve preventive programs that will contribute to the elimination of violence against women.
Despite improvements, attitudes that condone, justify or excuse violence against women persist.
That some progress has been made:
- The vast majority of the community agrees that physical and sexual assault, and threats, are domestic violence (between 97% and 98% compared with between 91% and 97% in 1995).
- The community is more likely in 2009 to recognise the spectrum of domestic violence behaviours as ‘very serious’ than they were in 1995.
- 98% of people today say that domestic violence is a crime, compared with 93% in 1995.
- 93% of people agree that forced sex in an intimate relationship is a crime.
- Very few people believe that ‘women who are raped ask for it’ – one in twenty people believe this in 2009 compared with one in seven people in 1995.
- The majority of the community (85%) disagrees that violence and harassment against women should be dealt with privately.
- Eight in ten people agree they would intervene in some way in a situation of domestic violence.
That there are still challenges ahead:
- Fewer people in 2009 believe that slapping and pushing a partner to cause harm or fear is a ‘very serious’ form of violence than in 1995 (from 64% in 1995 to 53% in 2009).
- 22% of people in 2009 believe that domestic violence is perpetrated equally by both men and women compared with 9% in 1995.
- 34% believe that ‘rape results from men being unable to control their need for sex’.
- One in four people (26%) disagrees that ‘women rarely make false claims of being raped’.
- 13% of people still agree that women ‘often say no when they mean yes’ and roughly one in six (16%) agrees that a woman ‘is partly responsible if she is raped when drunk or drug affected’.
- One in five people (22%) believes that domestic violence can be excused if later the perpetrator regrets what they have done.
- Eight in ten people in the general community say it is hard to understand why women stay in violent relationships and more than half believe a woman could leave a violent relationship if she really wanted to.

South Australian statistics

Data available from the Office for Crime Statistics and Research (OCSAR) in the Attorney-General’s Department shows that:

between July 2001 and June 2009 there were 45 domestic violence related homicides reported in South Australia, of which 39 involved female victims and six involved male victims.

Australian statistics

Violence against women and their children was estimated to cost the Australian economy $13.6 billion in 2008-09. Without appropriate action to address this issue, an estimated three-quarters of a million Australian women will experience and report violence in the period of 2021-22, costing the Australian economy an estimated $15.6 billion. ³
A study of 5,000 Australians aged between 12 - 20 found that ‘about one-quarter (23%) of the 5,000 young people reported at least one act that could be described as physical domestic violence against their mothers or stepmothers.' ⁴

Personal Safety Survey (PSS) (2005) ⁵

On August 10 2006 the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the results of the first national Personal Safety Survey (PSS) presenting information about women's and men's experiences of violence.

The PSS defines violence as ‘any incident involving the occurrence, attempt or threat of either physical or sexual assault. Physical assault involves the use of physical force with the intent to harm or frighten. An attempt or threat to inflict physical harm is included only if a person believes it is likely to be carried out. Sexual assault includes acts of a sexual nature carried out against a person’s will through the use of physical force, intimidation or coercion, or any attempts to do this. Unwanted sexual touching is excluded from sexual assault. Sexual threat involves the threat of an act of a sexual nature which the person believes is likely to be carried out.’

The survey found that since the age of 15:

2,243,600 women experienced physical assault.
1,293,100 women experienced sexual assault.
2,499,100 women experienced inappropriate comments about their body or sex life.
1,931,100 women experienced unwanted sexual touching.

The survey also found that young women experience sexual assault at higher rates than older women. Of all women who reported experiencing sexual violence in the year previous to the study 28.2% were aged between 18-24, 29.2% were aged 25-34, 25.4% were aged 35-44 and 17.2% were aged 45 and over.

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey (NATSISS) (2002) ⁶

The Australian Bureau of Statistics conducted the 2002 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey (NATSISS) between August 2002 and April 2003. The survey provides information about the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations of Australia for a wide range of areas of social concern including health, education, culture and labour force participation.

The 2002 Survey found that:

One-quarter of Indigenous people in 2002 reported that they had been a victim of physical or threatened violence in the previous 12 months.

International Violence Against Women Survey: Australian Component (IVAWS) (2004) ⁷

A total of 6,677 women aged between 18 and 69 years participated in the telephone survey between December 2002 and June 2003, and provided information about their experiences of both physical and sexual violence.

The IVAWS defines physical violence to ‘Include both physical assaults, which refer to the use of physical force with the intent to harm or frighten a woman, and physical attempts or threats, which refers to the verbal, and/or physical intent to inflict harm which the woman believed was able and likely to be carried out.’

Sexual violence Includes ‘any form of non-consensual or forced sexual activity or touching including rape. It is carried out against the woman’s will using physical or threatened force, intimidation or coercion. Includes sexual touching.’

The survey found that:

Compared to the non-Indigenous women in the sample, this group of Indigenous women reported higher levels of physical, sexual and any violence during the 12 months preceding the IVAWS.
- During this period, about seven per cent of non-Indigenous women reported experiencing physical violence (4% RSE), compared to 20 per cent of Indigenous women (21% RSE).
- Three times as many Indigenous women reported experiencing an incident of sexual violence, compared to non-Indigenous women (12%; 28% RSE versus 4%; 6% RSE).

Interstate statistics

Intimate partner violence is responsible for more ill-health and premature death in Victorian women under the age of 45 than any other of the well-known risk factors, including high blood pressure, obesity and smoking. ⁸
Women with physical and cognitive disabilities experience higher rates of intimate partner violence than those without disabilities, and those with cognitive disabilities are particularly vulnerable. ⁹

International statistics

Overseas studies have found that women with disabilities, regardless of age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or class are assaulted, raped and abused at a rate of between two and twelve times greater than women without disabilities. ¹⁰
Women with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to intimate partner violence, especially where the abuser is also a carer and can exercise control over access to medication, or restrict mobility and access to external supports. ¹¹

Further information is available at:

Alternative formats of all downloads can be obtained by calling 08 82071555 or by emailing agd@agd.sa.gov.au

Reference

¹ Australian Institute of Criminology, The Social Research Centre and VicHealth (2009), National Survey on Community attitudes to Violence Against Women, Melbourne, VicHealth. Full Report and Fact Sheet is available here.

² Australian Institute of Criminology, The Social Research Centre and VicHealth (2009), National Survey on Community attitudes to Violence Against Women, Melbourne, VicHealth. Full Report and Fact Sheet is available here.

³ KPMG (2009), The Cost of Violence Against Women and their Children, Safety Taskforce, Department of families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Australian Government (quoted in The National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women: Immediate Government Actions April 2009, p2, Available here).

⁴ D Indermaur (2001), Young Australians and Domestic Violence, Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice, No 195, pg. 2, Australian Institute of Criminology. Available here.

⁵ Australian Bureau of Statistics (2005), Personal Safety Survey, ABS Cat No 4906.0, Canberra, Commonwealth of Australia. Available here.

⁶ Australian Bureau of Statistics (2002), National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey 2002, ABS cat no 4714.0, Canberra, Commonwealth of Australia, pg. 13, Available here.

⁷ Australian Institute of Criminology (2003), International Violence Against Women Survey 2002/03, Canberra, J Mouzos and T. Makkai, pg 29-31, Available here.

⁸ VicHealth (2004) The Health Costs of Violence: Measuring the Burden of Disease caused by Intimate Partner Violence, Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, Melbourne, pg 8, Available here.

⁹ Goodfellow, J and Camilleri, M (2003) Beyond belief, beyond justice: the difficulties for victims/survivors with disabilities when reporting sexual assault and seeking justice, Disability Discrimination Legal Service, Melbourne, Available here (quoted in National Survey on Community Attitudes to Violence Against Women 2009, Victoria, p32, Full Report and Fact Sheet is available here).

¹⁰ Mulder 1995, cited in ‘Domestic violence : Working with men : phase 1 meta-evaluation report', Strategic Partners Pty Ltd., 2003. -- Barton, A.C.T.: Office of the Status of Women.

¹¹ Brownridge, D 2006, ‘Partner violence against women with disabilities: prevalence, risk, and explanations’, Violence Against Women, vol. 12, no. 9, pp. 805–22 (quoted in National Survey on Community Attitudes to Violence Against Women 2009, Victoria, p13, Available here).

Last updated: Thursday, July 01, 2010