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Is violence against women growing in Australia?
The release of data from the ABS Personal Safety Survey 2005 ,has given us the opportunity for the first time in Australia to compare national rates of violence against women with comparable data from the 1996 Women s Safety Survey. Overall the survey indicated that there have been small falls in the rates of violence experienced by women in the 12 months prior to the 2005 survey when compared with the 1996 survey:
** 5.8 per cent (443 800) of women experienced violence in 2005 compared to 7.1 per cent (490 400) in 1996.
** 4.7 per cent (363 000) of women experienced physical violence in 2005, compared with 5.9 per cent (404 400) in 1996.
** The proportion of women who experienced physical assault in 2005 was 3.1 per cent (242 000) compared to 5.0 per cent (346 900) in 1996.
** Other falls were also recorded, such as small fall in the rate of sexual assaults of women, but the small numbers in the surveys on which these estimates are based mean that this fall is not statistically significant.
These small decreases have not been uniform across all groups of women though. While women under 35 experienced falls in the rate of violence they experienced in the previous 12 months, the rates for women aged 35 and over remained about the same or even increased.
Do victims know the perpetrators?
In the ABS publication, Recorded Crime Victims 2003, 78 per cent of female victims of sexual assault knew the offender (in cases where there was sufficient data to identify the relationship of the offender to the victim). There is also a marked difference when comparing the rates of male and female victims of assault who knew their offender. Looking only at cases with sufficient data to identify the relationship, only 47 per cent of male victims of assault knew the offender while 81 per cent of female victims knew their offender in 2003.
A 2005 report released by the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC), Homicide in Australia: 2003 2004 National Homicide Monitoring Program (NHMP) Annual Report found that:
** 36 per cent of homicide victims were female and;
** 49 per cent of female victims were killed as a result of a domestic altercation (as compared to 15 per cent of male victims).
Another AIC report released in 2003, Family Homicide in Australia found that three-quarters of intimate partner homicides involve males killing their female partners and that the most common type of family homicide over the 13-year period was intimate partner homicide (60 per cent).
Womens experiences of male violence: findings from the Australian Component of the International Violence against Women Survey (IVAWS) includes chapters on intimate partner and non-partner violence. This survey found that over one third of women who had ever had an intimate partner (a current or previous spouse, de-facto or boyfriend) experienced some form of violence by a partner in their lifetime. However, the level of violence by previous partners is much greater than that by current partners. The survey also found that 41 per cent of women had experienced violence by a non-partner male in their lifetime.
Australian Parliament, 2012
The release of data from the ABS Personal Safety Survey 2005 ,has given us the opportunity for the first time in Australia to compare national rates of violence against women with comparable data from the 1996 Women s Safety Survey. Overall the survey indicated that there have been small falls in the rates of violence experienced by women in the 12 months prior to the 2005 survey when compared with the 1996 survey:
** 5.8 per cent (443 800) of women experienced violence in 2005 compared to 7.1 per cent (490 400) in 1996.
** 4.7 per cent (363 000) of women experienced physical violence in 2005, compared with 5.9 per cent (404 400) in 1996.
** The proportion of women who experienced physical assault in 2005 was 3.1 per cent (242 000) compared to 5.0 per cent (346 900) in 1996.
** Other falls were also recorded, such as small fall in the rate of sexual assaults of women, but the small numbers in the surveys on which these estimates are based mean that this fall is not statistically significant.
These small decreases have not been uniform across all groups of women though. While women under 35 experienced falls in the rate of violence they experienced in the previous 12 months, the rates for women aged 35 and over remained about the same or even increased.
Do victims know the perpetrators?
In the ABS publication, Recorded Crime Victims 2003, 78 per cent of female victims of sexual assault knew the offender (in cases where there was sufficient data to identify the relationship of the offender to the victim). There is also a marked difference when comparing the rates of male and female victims of assault who knew their offender. Looking only at cases with sufficient data to identify the relationship, only 47 per cent of male victims of assault knew the offender while 81 per cent of female victims knew their offender in 2003.
A 2005 report released by the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC), Homicide in Australia: 2003 2004 National Homicide Monitoring Program (NHMP) Annual Report found that:
** 36 per cent of homicide victims were female and;
** 49 per cent of female victims were killed as a result of a domestic altercation (as compared to 15 per cent of male victims).
Another AIC report released in 2003, Family Homicide in Australia found that three-quarters of intimate partner homicides involve males killing their female partners and that the most common type of family homicide over the 13-year period was intimate partner homicide (60 per cent).
Womens experiences of male violence: findings from the Australian Component of the International Violence against Women Survey (IVAWS) includes chapters on intimate partner and non-partner violence. This survey found that over one third of women who had ever had an intimate partner (a current or previous spouse, de-facto or boyfriend) experienced some form of violence by a partner in their lifetime. However, the level of violence by previous partners is much greater than that by current partners. The survey also found that 41 per cent of women had experienced violence by a non-partner male in their lifetime.
Australian Parliament, 2012