Women are three times more likely than men to report an incident of physical or sexual violence at the hands of a partner they've lived with, while one in five women have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15.
More broadly, two in five Australians over the age of 18 — or around eight million people — have experienced physical or sexual violence.
These figures come from the Australian Bureau of Statistics' (ABS) latest Personal Safety Survey, which canvassed 12,000 Australian women and men throughout 2021 and the beginning of 2022 on their experiences of violence. For the first time, the survey also measured rates of economic abuse by cohabiting partners and found one in six women — or 16 per cent — had experienced it.
The results, released on Wednesday, reveal an unexpected drop in the number of people reporting violence and emotional abuse in the 12 months leading up to the survey at the hands of a partner they've lived with, compared to the same study conducted six years earlier.
In the new survey, 0.9 per cent of women said they had experienced violence by a cohabiting partner in the previous 12 months — compared to 1.7 per cent in 2016 — while the rate of emotional abuse by a cohabiting partner also fell for both women (4.8 to 3.9 per cent) and men (4.2 to 2.5 per cent).
"Now that we're finally getting some of the prevalence data [from the pandemic period] coming out, we're seeing results that are perhaps more positive than what we would have expected," says Associate Professor Kristen Diemer, a sociologist at the University of Melbourne focused on measuring violence against women.
"It's positive, we're going in the right direction, but we need to make sure it's a true read of what's happening."
The ABS takes violence to include attempts and threats, while emotional abuse is defined as behaviour or actions that seek to control a person or cause them emotional harm or fear, characterised by "their intent to manipulate, control, isolate or intimidate the person they're aimed at".
Reports of sexual harassment over the 12-month period by women also fell by more than a quarter to 12.6 per cent, down from 17.3 per cent in 2016, while the rate for men dropped from 9.3 per cent to 4.5 per cent.
The findings come after widespread concern that the pandemic, and ensuing lockdowns, had led to an increase in violence within the home. Diemer says it's too soon to tell exactly what's behind the improvement and if it will be long-lasting, but suggests part of it may be due to people being separated from their abuser by public health measures.
"I don't think that we've got enough information to understand whether this is an accurate and long-term reduction, or whether it's something more reflective of the pandemic," says Patty Kinnersly, the chief executive of Our Watch.
"The data is really challenging, it's gendered, and we have a lot more work to do."
Women are more likely to experience violence from someone they know
Vanessa*, who cannot be named for safety reasons, is one of many women who endured intimate partner violence during lockdowns.
She met her ex-partner just as COVID arrived in Australia and the couple quickly moved in together.
"From that point, the sort of coercive control started happening," she says. "He was very concerned about where I was, who I was speaking to at any point in time during the day, constant questioning about who I was interacting with, constant accusations about infidelity."
The isolation was compounded by the pandemic, as "it gave him every avenue to remove me from my support network".
About six months into the relationship, the physical violence started. After an attempt to leave him, she says it intensified to the point that she felt she was constantly "walking on eggshells".
But it was when she made the decision to leave for good that she realised the severity of her situation. In the process of cleaning out his things from her house, she discovered a knife, duct tape and cable ties in a bedside table drawer.
"It was as though all of a sudden all the lights had been turned on and I realised what had been going on," she says.
"We talk about the statistics of one woman a week [who are killed in Australia], I absolutely could have been one of those."
Men are, overall, slightly more likely to experience physical violence than women, with 43 per cent of men and 39 per cent of women reporting some form of violent incident since the age of 15 — figures that have remained broadly stable since 2016.
But when you look beneath the topline data, the ABS's head of crime and justice statistics Michelle Ducat says it's clear that men and women experience violence very differently.
"Men are much more likely to experience physical violence most often by a stranger, whereas women are more likely to experience sexual violence and it's more often by a family member or someone that they know," she says.
According to the survey, 30 per cent of men reported experiencing violence at the hands of a stranger compared to 11 per cent of women, while women are more likely to be harmed by someone known to them (35 per cent and 25 per cent respectively).
Women are also more likely to experience physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner or family member during their lifetime, with 27 per cent of women and 12 per cent of men reporting experience of domestic and family violence.
Looking only at sexual violence, women are almost four times more likely to be victims: roughly 2.2 million or one in five women report having experienced it, compared to 580,000 men, which is about one in 16.
It's a similar story when it comes to stalking, which includes unwanted contact, use of tracking devices, hacking and impersonating someone online with the intent of damaging their reputation. An estimated 14 per cent of Australians reported having experienced stalking since the age of 15, with women three times more likely to be targeted.
These figures have increased slightly since 2016, from 17 to 20 per cent of women.
One in six women have experienced economic abuse by their partner
The survey also measures experiences of emotional abuse within cohabiting partner relationships over a lifetime, with 23 per cent of women and 14 per cent of men reporting having experienced it at some point since the age of 15.
In previous surveys, economic abuse was included in this category, but after noting how often the behaviours were being raised by respondents the ABS moved it to a separate category in the most recent release.
They found women were twice as likely to report economic abuse by a cohabiting partner.
"We found that partners, particularly for women, were quite likely to try and restrict their access to economic resources," Ducat says. "Whether that was things like controlling their bank accounts, or not allowing them to work or study."
It's a red flag that Vanessa knows well. During her relationship, her former partner convinced her to quit her job by promising that he would be able to look after her.
Now on the other side, Vanessa says more attention needs to go into educating the community about the early warning signs of abusive relationships.
"Our domestic violence approach is fundamentally response based in nature … that's where the majority of our resources and time is spent, essentially sending in a mop-up crew once the abuse has already happened," she says.
"We need to stop shaming and blaming women and we need to stop asking questions like 'why didn't you just leave' and start understanding the mechanisms around why she can't leave; whether she's being financially abused, whether she's staying for the sake of her children, whether she's terrified of being homeless or living in her car.
"These are all things we need to understand, and readily act upon."
*Names have been changed
With additional reporting by Casey Briggs
