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Home → Publications → Reports → Australian crime : facts and figures → 2004 → Figure 19: Sexual assault victims, gender and relationship to offender, percentages, 2003

Australian crime : facts and figures 2004

Sexual assault : Victim-offender relationship

Figure 19: Sexual assault victims, gender and relationship to offender, percentages, 2003 *

chart

Excludes Queensland and Western Australia (information not available).
* The addition of NSW to these data this year resulted in a shift in the percentages. NSW comprises a large proportion of the total and boosted the representation of the family member category.
** Includes known non-family and known not further defined, and may include some family members.
Australian Bureau of Statistics 2004. Recorded crime: victims, Australia 2003 cat no 4510.0. Canberra: ABS

What this chart shows

  • Most sexual assaults (74%) were committed by a person known to the victim.
  • Two in five sexual assaults were perpetrated by a family member and the figure is even higher for male victims.
  • In 35% of sexual assaults the offender was a nonfamily member known to the victim.
  • Twenty-one per cent of sexual assaults were committed by strangers. Females were more likely than males to be sexually assaulted by strangers.

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