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Home: Survivors: For Males: Research statistics

A Picture of Australia's Children 2009

In 2008, around 25,000 children aged 0-12 years were on care and protection orders (7.1 orders per 1,000 children).

This is an 88% increase since 2000, when the rate was 3.9 per 1,000 children.
Infants were less likely to be on a care and protection order than older children (4.2 orders per 1,000 infants compared with 7 for older children).

In 2007-08 there were 7.4 per 1,000 children aged 0-12 years who were the subject of a substantiation of a child protection notification received.

In 2008 there were 7.1 per 1,000 children aged 0-12 years who are the subject of care and protection orders.

In 2007-08, the numbers of children aged 0-12 years who were the subject of a substantiation of a notification were subject to:

Emotional abuse, reported in 39% of substantiations.
Neglect (28%).
Physical abuse (24%).
Sexual abuse (9%).

In 2003, children aged 0-14 years who have been the victims of:

Physical assault 309 per 100,000.
Sexual assault 187 per 100,000.

In 2003:

Physical assault was the most commonly reported crime against children.
A reported 12,400 children aged 0-14 years were victims of physical assault - a rate of 309 victims per 100,000 children.
Children aged 10-14 years were physically assaulted at more than 4 times the rate of children aged 0-9 years.
Rates were 50% higher among boys than girls (367 per 100,000 compared with 244).
41% of all reported sexual assault victims were aged 0-14 years (ABS 2004d).
Around 7,500 children aged 0-14 years, or 187 in every 100,000 children, were the reported victims of sexual assault.
Sexual assault rates were higher for children aged 10-14 years than for children aged 0-9 years (277 and 142 per 100,000 children, respectively ).
75% of reported victims were girls.
Rates of reported sexual assault were higher for older girls (aged 10-14 years) than for 0-9 year old girls (more than twice as high).
Rates for boys were similar for both age groups.
For boys, reported rates of physical assault were 367 per 100,000 and for sexual assault 89 per 100,000.
For girls reported rates of physical assault were 244 per 100,000 and for sexual assault 291 per 100,000.
Children aged 0-14 years were less likely to have been reported victims of physical assault than those aged 15 years and over (309 in every 100,000 compared with 920).
Children aged 0-14 years were more likely to have been the reported victim of sexual assault (187 in every 100,000) compared with those aged 15 years and over (68 in every 100,000) (ABS 2004c).

Download: A Picture of Australia's Children 2009 - Part VII: How Safe and Secure are Australia's Children? ( 268Kb )

Source: The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW)

Trends in Violent Crime 2008

In the 10-year period between 1995 and 2005, the incidence of recorded sexual assault for children aged 0-14 years accounted for around 40% of all recorded sexual assaults.
Since the early 1990s, the increase in rates of sexual assault for this age group was the same as for people aged 15+ years (23% compared with 24%).
However, scrutiny of the period where much of the increase occurred (between 1999 and 2003) shows the increase among the 0 to 14-year-old age group was more than double that of people aged 15+ years (37% compared with 17%).
Rates of sexual assault increased for both males and females aged 0-14 years but more so among females (27% increase for females aged 0-14 years between 1996 and 2003, compared with 19% for males of the same age).

An increase in recorded sexual assault of young people was a major contributor to an overall rise in recorded sexual assault since the mid-1990s. As data are based on the date of reporting, which may be some time, even years, after the date of occurrence, it is not clear whether this increase relates to current or past events.

Download: Trends in Violent Crime 2008 ( 180Kb )

Source: Australian Institute of Criminology

Sexual Assault in Australia: A Statistical Overview 2004

Recorded Crime Statistics (RCS) data for victims of sexual assault, aged 0-14 years in 2003 indicate:

That female victims were slightly more likely to have known the offender than male victims in this age group (63% of female victims, compared to 59% of male victims in this age group).
For approximately 30% of both male and female victims in this age group, the offenders were parents of the victims.
For approximately 20% of both male and female victims in this age group, the offenders were known non-family members.
41% of all recorded sexual assault victims were children under 15 years of age (38% of all female victims and 56% of all male victims).
31% were aged 15-24 years.
The highest rate recorded for females was in the age group 15-19 years (0.52%, or 519.6 per 100,000 females).
The highest age group victimisation rates recorded in RCS for 2003 were in the 15-19 years age group (0.29%, or 287.7 per 100,000 persons).
Followed closely by the rates in the 10-14 years age group (0.28%, or 276.9 per 100,000 persons).
The highest rate recorded for males was in the age group 0-9 years (0.09%, or 90.0 per 100,000 males).
The recorded sexual assault prevalence rate for victims under 15 years of age has increased in recent years, from 0.14% in 1999 to 0.19% in 2003.
The numbers of recorded sexual assault victims aged under 15 years have also increased in recent years, from 5,425 in 1999 to 7,502 in 2003.
Of victims under 15 years of age recorded in 2003, 76% were female and 24% were male.
In RCS data for 2003, a further 31% of all victims were aged between 15 and 24 years (33% of all female victims and 19% of all male victims).
Of victims in this age group, 89% were female and 11% were male.

Data from the NSW Health Publication Initial Presentations to NSW Dexual Assault Services show that, in NSW in 1997-98:

Both boys and girls were most often sexually assaulted by a known male adult who was not a family member.
The next most common category of perpetrator was males under 16 years.
Although it is not clear whether this category included males within or outside the family or both.
Of perpetrators who were family members, the father and stepfather/de facto categories were represented in almost equal numbers as assailants of female children.
In NSW between 1994-95 and 1997-98, between 26% and 29% of child sexual assault victims (under the age of 16 years) each year were recorded as having been previously assaulted by the same offender(s) responsible for the presenting assault.
Of these children, almost one-third had been assaulted over a period of more than one year.
One in four had been assaulted for up to one year.
One in ten for up to one month.
However, the period of previous assault history was 'unknown' for between one quarter and one third of the children.

In the 1996 Womens' Safety Survey:

Approximately 65% of women who reported experiencing sexual violence (i.e. sexual assault and/or sexual threat) since the age of 15 years also reported that they had not experienced any abuse at younger ages.
An estimated 20% reported experiencing physical abuse when a child (i.e. prior to the age of 15 years); and
27% reported experiencing sexual abuse when a child.
Some had experienced both.

Download: Sexual Assault in Australia: A Statistical Overview 2004 ( 1.8Mb )

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics

The Experiences of Child Complainants of Sexual Abuse in the Criminal Justice System

When asked if they would ever report sexual abuse again following their experiences in the criminal justice system:

Only 44% of children in Queensland;
33% in New South Wales; and
64% in Western Australia indicated that they would.

Download: The Experiences of Child Complainants of Sexual Abuse in the Criminal Justice System. ( 400Kb )

Source: Australian Institute of Criminology

A Picture of Australia's Children 2009

The only national source of information on child abuse and neglect is the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), who reported that in 1997-1998:

5.6 per 1,000 children under the age of 16 were the subject of substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect.
Of these cases, 7.3 per 1,000 were indigenous children; and
4.4 per 1,000 were other children.
Research into child sexual abuse, suggests that the unofficial estimates are much higher than that reported by the AIHW.
These estimates have ranged from figures of 1 in 4 girls to somewhere between 1 in 7 and 1 in 12 boys as being victims of sexual abuse.
Other sources suggest that physical abuse and neglect occur in approximately 1 in 20 families with children.
The incidence of neglect is 1 in 10 families with children.

Download: A Picture of Australia's Children 2009 ( 1.8Mb )

Source: The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW)

Child Abuse and Neglect: Part 1 - Redefining the Issues

In 1998, official police records showed that:

1.1 children per 1,000 of the population aged between 0 and 9 had been victims of assault.
1.1 children per 1,000 aged between 0 and 9 had been victims of sexual assault.
5.8 children per 1,000 of the population aged between 10 and 14 had been victims of assault.
2.1 children per 1,000 aged between 10 and 14 had been victims of sexual assault.
Over 55% (N=1349) of all the sexual assault cases involving males were aged between 0 and 14 years.
Almost 40% (N=4256) of all the sexual assault cases involving females were aged between 0 and 14 years.

Child homicide rates for the nine-year period 1989- 1990 to 1997-1998, the National Homicide Monitoring Program at the Australian Institute of Criminology has recorded 284 homicides of children aged less than 15 years. Almost one-fifth (N=51) could be described as child abuse homicides and in these incidents the offender was usually a custodial parent, non-custodial parent, or de facto parent.

Download: Child Abuse and Neglect: Part 1 - Redefining the Issues ( 68Kb )

Source: Australian Institute of Criminology

Indigenous children

A Picture of Australia's Children 2009

Of the cases of child sexual assault recorded by police in New South Wales in 2004:

82% were female victims.
Indigenous females under 16 years were over-represented among this group (469 per 100,000 compared with 192 for non-Indigenous females under 16) (Aboriginal Child Sexual Assault Taskforce 2006).
Indigenous children were overrepresented among those for whom a substantiated physical or sexual abuse notification was received during 2007-08.
Indigenous children made up 20% of all children who were the subject of substantiations of sexual abuse and 16% of all children who were the subject of substantiations of physical abuse (AIHW 2009c).
This is despite comprising only around 5% of all children aged 0-17 years.

Download: A Picture of Australia's Children 2009 ( 1.8Mb )

Source: The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW)

Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indicators 2009

The rate of substantiated notifications for child abuse or neglect increased for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous children from 1999-2000 to 2007-08, with the rate for Indigenous children more than doubling over this period:

The rate for Indigenous children increased from 16 to 35 per 1000 children.
The rate for non-Indigenous children increased from 5 to 6 per 1000 children.
Indigenous children were six times more likely than non-Indigenous children to be the subject of a substantiation of abuse or neglect in 2007-08.
41 out of every 1,000 Indigenous children were on care and protection orders, compared to 5 per 1000 non-Indigenous children at 30 June 2008.

Download: Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indicators 2009 ( 3.8Mb )

Source: Productivity Commission

Overseas statistics

Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education

One in four girls and one in seven boys will be the victim of sexual assault before the age of 18.
Some 50-60% of all rapes occur before the victim is 18 years old; of these,
One-third of the victims are under the age of 6.
Some 29% of all forcible rapes occur when the victim is younger than eleven.
In 90% of the rapes of children younger than 12, the child knows the offender.

The typical offender convicted of sexual assault of a child is:

White;
Heterosexual male (91%);
Religious (91%);
Married or formerly married (75%);
Earning a middle income or above (65%);
College-educated (48%).
However, there are also youthful offenders; many rapists commit their first sexual assault by age 14-16.
The average convicted offender reports having molested anywhere from 30 to 60 children before being arrested for the first time.
It is not uncommon for an offender to sexually abuse up to 380 children in a lifetime.

Several studies have shown that two-thirds of pregnant teenagers have experienced sexual abuse, rape, or attempted rape before their first pregnancy. Moreover, 70% of the babies born to teenage mothers are fathered by men over 21.

Source: Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education

Effects of child abuse

A Picture of Australia's Children 2009

Children who have been abused or neglected emotionally or physically often:

Have poor social, behavioural and health outcomes immediately and later in life;
May experience lower social competence;
Poor school performance;
Impaired language ability;
A higher likelihood of criminal offending.
Mental health issues such as eating disorders, substance abuse and depression (Chartier et al. 2007; Gardner 2008; Zolotor et al. 1999).
The short and long-term consequences of abuse may be related to the type, severity and duration of abuse, and the context in which it occurs.

In 2006-07, among children aged 10-14 years:

There were around 570 hospital separations for intentional self-harm.
This is a rate of 41 per 100,000 children.
This is a 35% increase since 1998-99 (30 per 100,000 children).
This has been driven by an increase of almost 50% in the rate for girls, from 47 to 70 per 100,000 children.
The rate for boys was the same in 2006-07 as in 1998-99 (13 per 100,000 children).
The majority (84%) of intentional self-harm hospital separations were for girls (a rate of 70 per 100,000 children compared with 13 for boys).

In 2006-07, 27 children aged under 15 years died as the result of homicide. (Dearden & Jones 2008)

There were 2,337, or 1.7 in every 1,000, children aged 10-14 years were under juvenile justice supervision at some time during the year.
Indigenous children were over-represented at 24 times the rate of other children.

Download: A Picture of Australia's Children 2009 ( 1.8Mb )

Source: The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW)

Related reports

Child Sexual Abuse: Offender Characteristics and Modus Operandi, Stephen W. Smallbone and Richard K. Wortley, February 2001: The study reported in this paper aims to gather both official demographic and offence history data, and confidential self report data, from a large sample of men currently serving sentences in Queensland for sexual offences against children.; Download: Child Sexual Abuse: Offender Characteristics and Modus Operandi ( 48MKb ); Source: Australian Institute of Criminology
Child Protection Australia, 1996-1997: Source: The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW)
Comparability of Child Protection Sata 1999, AIHW cat. no. CWS 9.: Source: The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW)

This is not an exhaustive list of research in the area of family violence and sexual assault, merely a starting point. As the locations of web pages often change, many of these reports have been made available through this page to assist readers. Please note that these pdfs may not contain the latest version or any recent changes so it is recommended that researchers check the author's website for updates, suplements or amendments. All published details correct as at July 2009.

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