Sexual violence statistics
Data about sexual violence
Currently available data (as of April 2025) shows that:
More than one in five women (2.2 million or 22 per cent) have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15. Source: Personal Safety Survey, 2021-22
More than one in four Australians (28.5 per cent) aged 16+ years have experienced sexual abuse. Source: Australian Child Maltreatment Study, 2023
More than one in three girls (37.3 per cent) and around one in five boys (18.8 per cent) have experienced sexual abuse. Source: Australian Child Maltreatment Study, 2023
51 per cent of women in their 20s, 34 per cent of women in their 40s, and 26 per cent of women aged 68 to 73 years have experienced sexual violence. Source: ANROWS, Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health, 2022
11 per cent (1.1 million) of women have experienced sexual violence by a male intimate partner. Source: Personal Safety Survey, 2021-22
One in 16 men (582,400 or 6.1 per cent) have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15. Source: Personal Safety Survey 2021-22, Australian Bureau of Statistics
One in 20 (4.5 per cent) of students had been sexually assaulted since starting university. Source: National Student Safety Survey, 2021
One in two (53 per cent or five million) women and one in four (25 per cent or 2.2 million) men have experienced sexual harassment since the age of 15. Source: Personal Safety Survey, 2016
Three in four online dating app users report they have experienced sexual violence online, and one in three report they experienced sexual violence, including sexual assault, after they'd met in the 'real world'. Source: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2022
In 2023, there were 36,318 victims of sexual assault recorded in Australia, increasing by 11 per cent (3,547 victims) from the previous year. 84 per cent of victims were female. Around two in five victims (41 per cent) were aged between 10 and 17 years at the date of incident. Around two in five (39 per cent) sexual assaults were family and domestic violence related (14,059 victims). Source: Record crime - Victims, ABS, 2023
Data about perpetration
In 2022–23, most alleged sexual offenders were male (93 per cent) and two in three (65 per cent) were known to the victim. Source: Australian Sexual Offence Statistical (ASOS) collection
A 2024 study found that more than one in five respondents (22.1 per cent) had perpetrated one or more of the forms of sexual violence examined since turning 18 years of age. One in 10 (9.9 per cent) had done so in the past 12 months. Source: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2024
Men were significantly more likely than women to have perpetrated any and each form of sexual violence examined, and to have perpetrated multiple forms of sexual violence.
Around one in 10 (9.4 per cent) of Australian men have sexually offended against children (including technologically facilitated and offline abuse). Approximately half (4.9 per cent) of this group reporting sexual feelings towards children. Source: University of New South Wales and Jesuit Social Services