The vast majority of dangerous abusive and violent behaviours occur in private in people’s homes and are perpetrated by men, against women.
One in 3 women has experienced some kind of physical violence in her lifetime (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2012, Personal Safety Survey).
One in 6 adult women has experienced physical or sexual violence by a current or former partner. This compares to 1 in 19 men (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2012, Personal Safety Survey).
One in 4 women has experienced emotional abuse by a current or former partner (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2012, Personal Safety Survey).
Australian women are most likely to experience violence in their home, at the hands of a male current or ex-partner: 36% of women have experienced physical or sexual violence from someone they know, 15% have experienced violence from an ex-partner, and for 62% of the women who had experienced physical assault by a male perpetrator, the most recent incident was in their home (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2012, Personal Safety Survey).
Domestic violence is a vastly under reported crime. Of women who had experienced violence from a current partner, 39% had never sought advice or support and 80% had never contacted the Police (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2012, Personal Safety Survey).
Of women who have experienced violence by an ex-partner, 73% experienced more than one incident of violence, and over half had children in their care when the violence occurred (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2012, Personal Safety Survey).
89 women were killed by their current or former partner between 2008-10. This equates to nearly one woman every week (National Homicide Monitoring Program Annual Report, 2013, Australian Institute of Criminology).