Statistics

Some Facts on Domestic Violence

We only have to speak to our daughters to know that the stories of violence do not stop with our grandmothers, mothers and ourselves.

• Battering and rape continue to be the major cause of injury to women, higher than auto accidents and muggings combined (Violence Among Intimates:Stark and Flitcraft)
• Since the age of sixteen, 51% of Canadian women report having experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual violence (Stats Canada)
• 1 in 4 Canadian women have experienced physical or sexual abuse at the hands of their marital or common-law partners (Statistics Canada)
• Every 6 days a woman in this country is murdered by her intimate partner (Woman Killing – Intimate Femicide in Ontario 1991-1994 Crawford, Gartner & Dawson)
• A Canadian woman is 13X more likely to be murdered by her intimate partner than a stranger on the street (Wife Assault vs. Stranger Assault – Peter Jaffe)
• As many as 40% of female injuries are treated in emergency rooms as a result of partner abuse, but only 5% of these women are properly identified as being abused (Metro Abuse Council of Toronto – March 1998 – Best Practice Guidelines)
• 80% of children living in violent homes witness that violence (Understanding Wife Assault – Deborah Sinclair)
• 6 in 10 Canadian women who walk alone in their own area after dark feel “very” or “somewhat” worried doing so. (Statistics Canada)
• Women with violent fathers-in-law are at 3X the risk of assault by their partners than are women with non-violent fathers-in-law (Statistics Canada)
• 62% of all women murdered in Canada are killed by their partners (War Against Women Report, Parliament of Canada )
• Only 6% of battered women stay in a shelter. Yet shelters are regularly full beyond capacity (StatsCan Violence Against Women Survey)

Impact of Domestic Violence on Children

In the five-year period preceding the 1999 survey, children saw or heard assaults on a parent in an estimated 461,000 cases of spousal violence, representing slightly more than one-third of all spousal violence cases. Children who are exposed to physical violence in the home tend to exhibit higher rates of depression, worry and frustration.

• 28% of children who witnessed physical fights in the home showed signs that they themselves had exhibited physically aggressive behaviour, more than double the proportion (11%) who did not witness physical fights.
• 13% of children who saw physical fights showed signs of emotional disorders.
• About 70% of children who witnessed spousal violence witnessed assaults against their mothers. In half of all cases of wife assault witnessed by children, the women feared for their lives or were physically injured because of the violence.
• Children under the age of 15 were harmed or threatened in about 10% of spousal assaults against women. (Family violence in Canada: A Statistical Profile 2001, Statistics Canada)

Breaking the Cycle of Violence

• Violent men are three times as likely as non-violent men to have witnessed spousal violence in childhood, and women who were raised in similar circumstances are twice as likely to be victims of spousal violence. (Wife Assault: The Findings of a National Survey, Juristat, Statistics Canada)

Emergency Shelter Use

• In 1997-98, 90,792 persons (47,962 women, 53%, and 42,830 children, 47%) were admitted to 413 shelters for abused women in Canada.
• A snapshot portion of the 1997/98 Transition Home Survey, indicated that:
  • 8 out of 10 women and children in shelters had sought refuge to escape abuse such as psychological abuse, physical assault, threats and sexual assault
  • 85% of women seeking shelter did so to escape from someone with whom they had an intimate relationship
  • 68% of the women were abused by their current spouse/common-law partner
  • 56% of all women in shelters who were escaping abusive situations were admitted with children. About 3/4 of the children were under the age of 10. (Canada's Shelters for Abused Women, Juristat 19, Statistics Canada, 1999)

Women's House Serving Bruce and Grey
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