Feminist Research Education Development and Action Centre Reports Index

The FREDA Centre for Research on Violence against Women and Children VIOLENCE AGAINST GIRLS: Statistical Highlights Sexual Assault 54% of girls under age 16 have experienced some form of unwanted sexual attention; 24% have experienced rape or coercive sex; 17% have experienced incest (Holmes & Silverman 1992; Russell 1996) Sexual abuse prevalence rates are in the range of 20 to 30% for females and 7 to 15% for males (Bagley 1991; Briere 1992) 63% of all sexual assaults reported to police involve girls under the age of 18 (Russell 1996) 84% of the victims of sexual assault are girls and 97% of the perpetrators are male. In 22% of the sexual assault cases a weapon was used (Department of Justice 1992) Girls are two to three times more likely to experience sexual abuse than boys (Johnston & Saenz 1997) Canadian statistics on child sexual abuse reveal that 64% of all reported sexual assaults are against children; 33% of those assaults occur at the hands of family members, half of whom are parents, with 97% of the perpetrators being male (Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics 1994) In a survey of 3 major Canadian hospitals: 75% of children admitted for sexual assault were female, as were 48% of children admitted for physical abuse (Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics 1994) The rate of sexual abuse for girls with disabilities is quadruple that of the national average (Razack 1994) A Toronto study of runaways found that 86% of the girls and 50% of the boys had experienced sexual abuse (Welsh et al. 1995) Up to 75% of victims of sex crimes in Aboriginal communities are female under 18 years of age, 50% of those are under 14, and almost 25% of those are younger than 7 years of age (Correctional Service of Canada, cited in McIvor & Nahanee 1998:65) The incidence of child sexual abuse in some Aboriginal communities is as high as 75 to 80% for girls under 8 years old (McEvoy & Daniluk 1995) Physical, Sexual, and Psychological Abuse 14% of all reported physical assaults are against children; 22% of these assaults are by family members, most often parents. The majority of victims are between the ages of 12 and 17 (68%); 32% are 11 or younger. Weapons are used in 28% of cases of physical assault; 59% of victims suffered a minor injury, and 5% suffered a major injury. Most perpetrators are male (78%). The majority (70%) of physical assaults against children result in charges being laid (Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics 1994) Canadian girls are victims in 84% of reported cases of sexual abuse, in 60% of reported cases of physical abuse, and in 52% of reported cases of neglect (Thomlinson, Stephens, Cunes, and Grinnel 1991) 43% of foster children experience violence within the foster home setting; 60% have been abused in the past; and 5% are still being abused (Kufeldt et al. 1998:21) 20% of girl students in Toronto secondary schools report experiencing abuse in their romantic relationships (Mercer 1987) 35% to 50% of young adults are involved in some level of physical abuse of their partners (Danielson et al. 1998) 39% of women who experience marital violence report that their children also witness the violence (Statistics Canada Violence Against Women Survey 1993) Almost 50% of youths in four residential treatment agencies and one youth shelter reported that they had witnessed their mothers being "slapped, hit, pushed, or punched" and of these, 50% witnessed injury to their mothers (Carlson 1990) Research indicates that physically abused girls are more likely to develop eating disorders (Hernandez 1995) 61% of girls with eating disorders have reported sexual abuse; 85% have reported physical abuse (Miller 1996) 61% of white North American women with eating disorders are sexually abused before their eighteenth birthdays (Miller 1996) 53% of women with disabilities from birth have been raped, abused, or assaulted (Lynn & O’Neill 1995:278) Among federally sentenced women, 23% were Aboriginal, 90% of whose backgrounds included physical abuse and 61% sexual abuse (Canadian Task Force on Federally Sentenced Women 1991, cited in Comack 1996). Also, many were adopted or placed in non-Aboriginal foster homes where they experienced intense racism from the dominant society (Shaw et al. 1991) The Ontario Native Women’s study on violence against women in Aboriginal communities reports that 80% of women and 40% of children are abused and assaulted (Lynn & O’Neill 1995) Homicide Between 1981 and 1992, 13% of homicide victims in Canada were under the age of 18. Family members committed 53% of all child homicides; 80% of these family perpetrated homicides were committed by the parents of the victims (Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics 1994) Adolescent wives (aged 15 to 19) are murdered three times more frequently than adult wives (Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics 1994) Other Statistics Dating violence and sexual assault have been linked to low self-esteem and eating disorders in young women (National Forum on Health 1997) 90 to 95% of all individuals with eating disorders are female (Dolan & Gitzinger 1994) 38% of 13-year-old girls and 48% of 15-year-old girls believe they are overweight (King, Wold, Tudor-Smith & Harel 1996) 25% of 15-year-old boys and 39% of 15-year-old girls admit to feeling depressed at least once per week (Tipper 1997) Among foster children, 60% of boys and 72% of girls have strong feelings of sadness; 11% of boys and 18% of girls admitted to deliberately injuring themselves (Statistics Canada 1996) Although boys are more likely to commit suicide, girls attempt suicide 4 to 5 times more frequently; Aboriginal girls are 8 times more likely to commit suicide (Debold 1995) In Aboriginal communities, teenage boys commit suicide 6 times more frequently than girls, but girls are hospitalized for attempting suicide at twice the rate of boys (Royal Commission on Aboriginal People 1995:11) The suicide rate for adolescent Aboriginal girls is 8 times the national average of non-Aboriginal adolescent girls (National Forum on Health 1997) The mortality rate in Canada for girls and women in prostitution is 40 times the national average (Davis 1994) In the U.S. between 2,000 and 3,500 men annually marry women who are mail-order brides (Narayan 1995:107) Child poverty in Canada ranks second when compared with other industrialized nations (Russell 1996) References Cited Bagley, C. "Preventing Child Sexual Abuse: The State of Knowledge and Future Research." In Child Sexual Abuse: Critical Perspectives on Prevention, Intervention, and Treatment, ed. C. Bagley & R.J. Thomlison, 9-26. Toronto, ON: Wall & Emerson, 1991. Briere, J. Child Abuse Trauma. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992. Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics. Statistics Canada Report: Family Violence in Canada, Current National Data. Ottawa, ON: Department of Justice, June 1994. Carlson, B.E. "Adolescent Observers of Marital Violence." Journal of Family Violence, 5 (1990): 285-299. Comack, E. Women in Trouble: Connecting Women's Law Violations to their History of Abuse. Halifax, NS: Fernwood, 1996. Danielson, Kirstie K., Terrie E. Moffitt, Avshalom Caspi & Phil A. Silva. "Comorbidity between Abuse of an Adult and DSM-III-R Mental Disorders: Evidence from an Epidemiological Study." American Journal of Psychiatry, 155, 1 (1998): 131-133. Davis, Sylvia with Martha Shaffer. "Prostitution in Canada: The Invisible Menace or the Menace of Invisibility?" 1994. Available online: www.walnet.org/csis/papers/sdavis.html Debold, E. "Helping Girls Survive the Middle Grades." Principal, 74, 3 (1995): 22-24. Department of Justice. The Uniform Crime Reporting Survey. Ottawa, ON: Department of Justice, 1992. Dolan, B. & I. Gitzinger, eds. Why Women? Gender Issues and Eating Disorders. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Athlone, 1994. Hernandez, Jeanne. "The Concurrence of Eating Disorders with Histories of Child Abuse among Adolescents." Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 4, 3 (1995): 73-85. Holmes, Janelle & Eliane Leslau Silverman. We're Here, Listen to Us: A Survey of Young Women in Canada. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, March 1992. Johnston, E. & R. Saenz. "Care of Adolescent Girls." Primary Care, 24, 1 (1997): 53-65. King, A., B. Wold, C. Tudor-Smith & Y. Harel. The Health of Youth: A Cross-National Survey. Copenhagen, Denmark: WHO Regional Office for Europe, 1996. Kufeldt, K., J. Baker, L. Bennett & R. Tite. Looking After Children in Canada: Interim Draft Report. St. John's, NF: Memorial University, 1998. Lynn, Marion & Eimear O'Neill. "Families, Power, and Violence." In Canadian Families: Diversity, Conflict and Change, ed. Nancy Mandell & Ann Duffy, 271-305. Toronto, ON: Harcourt Brace Canada, 1995. McEvoy, Maureen & Judith Daniluk. "Wounds to the Soul: The Experiences of Aboriginal Women Survivors of Sexual Abuse." Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne 36, 3 (August 1995): 221-235. McIvor, Sharon D. & Teressa A. Nahanee. "Aboriginal Women: Invisible Victims of Violence." In Unsettling Truths: Battered Women, Policy, Politics, and Contemporary Research in Canada, ed. Kevin Bonnycastle & George S. Rigakos, 63-69. Vancouver, BC: Collective Press, 1998. Mercer, Shirley Litch. Not a Pretty Picture: An Exploratory Study of Violence against Women in High School Dating Relationships. Toronto: Education Wife Assault, 1987. Miller, Katherine J. "Prevalence and Process of Disclosure of Childhood Sexual Abuse among Eating-Disordered Women." In Sexual Abuse and Eating Disorders, ed. Mark F. Schwartz & Leigh Cohn, 36-51. New York, NY: Brunner/Mazel, 1996. Narayan, Uma. "'Male-Order' Brides: Immigrant Women, Domestic Violence and Immigration Law." Hypatia, 10, 1 (Winter 1995): 104-119. National Forum on Health. "An Overview of Women's Health." Canada Health Action: Building on the Legacy. Ottawa, ON: National Forum on Health, 1997. Razack, Sherene. "From Consent to Responsibility, from Pity to Respect: Subtexts in Cases of Sexual Violence involving Girls and Women with Developmental Disabilities." Law and Social Inquiry, 19, 4 (Fall 1994): 891-922. Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Choosing Life: Special Report on Suicide among Aboriginal People. Ottawa, ON: Ministry of Supply and Services, 1995. Russell, Susan, with the Canadian Federation of University Women. Take Action for Equality, Development and Peace: A Canadian Follow-up Guide to Beijing '95. Ed. Linda Souter & Betty Bayless. Ottawa, ON: CRIAW, Canadian Beijing Facilitating Committee, 1996. Shaw, Margaret, Karen Rodgers, Johanne Blanchette, et al. Survey of Federally Sentenced Women: Report to the Task Force on Federally Sentenced Women on the Prison Survey. User Report #1991-4. Ottawa, ON: Solicitor General of Canada, 1991. Statistics Canada. Health Reports, 7, 4 (1996): 11-24. Thomlinson, B., M. Stephens, J.W. Cunes & R.M. Grinnell. "Characteristics of Canadian Male and Female Child Sexual Abuse Victims." Journal of Child & Youth Care, Special Issue (1991): 65-76. Tipper, Jennifer. The Canadian Girl Child: Determinants of the Health and Well-Being of Girls and Young Women. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Institute of Child Health, September 1997. Welsh, Lesley A., Francis Archambault, Mark David Janus & Scott W. Brown. Running for their Lives: Physical and Sexual Abuse of Runaway Adolescents. New York, NY: Garland Publishing, 1995. The Alliance of Five Research Centres on Violence (AFRCV) The FREDA Centre for Research on Violence against Women and Children SFU Harbour Centre 515 West Hastings Street Vancouver, BC, V6B 5K3 Tel: 778-782-5197 RESOLVE Manitoba Room 108, Isbister Building University of Manitoba Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2N2 Tel: 204-474-8965 Centre for Research on Violence against Women and Children 254 Pall Mall Street, Suite 101 London, ON, N6A 5P6 Tel: 519-661-4040 Le Centre de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur la Violence Familiale et la Violence Faite aux Femmes (CRI-VIFF) Université de Montréal, École de service social CP 6128, SUCC Centre Ville Montréal, QC, H3C 3J7 Tel: 514-343-6111 ext. 3757 Muriel McQueen Fergusson Centre for Family Violence Research Box 4400 University of New Brunswick Fredericton, NB, E3B 5A3 Tel: 506-453-3595 © May 2001. The FREDA Centre for Research on Violence against Women and Children.