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Despite the growing national awareness of sexual and domestic violenceAustralia has recorded its highest number of sexual assaults in decades.
New statistics reveal that sexual assaults reported to the police in 2023 are at a 31-year crime record.
And it’s the 12th year in a row that the shocking crimes have risen.
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The latest crime figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) show that surviving victims are most often between the ages of 10 and 17, with the majority being female.
Minors in the 10-17 age group accounted for 41 per cent of victims of sexual abuse recorded in the data, the ABS revealed on Thursday.
“The majority of survivors of sexual assault are women (84 percent),” the bureau said.
And increases are being seen nationally, said Samantha McNally, the ABS’s head of crime and justice statistics.
“There were 36,318 survivors of sexual assault recorded by the police in 2023, with an increase in almost all states and territories,” she said.
“Accounting for population growth, the rate of registered survivors of sexual assault rose from 126 per 100,000 last year to 136 survivors per 100,000.”
The data highlighted a number of other grim trends surrounding sexual assault in Australia.
More than two in three (69 percent) sexual assaults occurred in a residential setting, and the same number reported the incidents within a year of their occurrence.
Of all sexual assaults recorded in 2023, nearly two in five (39 percent) were related to family and domestic violence.
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