New research has found more than half of Australian women in their 20s have experienced sexual violence, with fears the rates of abuse across the population are far higher than previously thought.
The study from Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety (ANROWS) also found a third of women in their 40s, and a quarter of women aged between 68 and 73 have experienced sexual violence at some stage during their lives.
The impact of the abuse was found to be far reaching, with victims and survivors between 30 and 45 per cent more likely to have high levels of financial stress, as well as poorer physical and mental health.
Women in their 20s and 40s who had experienced violence as children were twice as likely to experience it again as adults.
The report was led by researchers from the University of Newcastle using data from Australia's Longitudinal Study on Women's Health.
ANROWS chief executive Padma Raman said the "startling" figures were much higher than previous data, but fears the full picture of abuse against women is still hidden.
"The Australian Bureau of Statistics does a personal safety survey every four years — that has regularly seen it as one in five women experienced sexual violence in the course of their lifetime, which sort of equates to what the older women are telling us [in this study]," Ms Raman told the ABC.
"But we know that sexual violence is under-reported, we know that we still haven't reached that threshold in terms of what people actually understand their experience to be and how they report it."
Younger women more likely to incidents
Ms Raman said it was unclear why younger women were more likely to both identify and report their experiences of sexual violence.
"It could be that women are more confident in understanding their experiences," she said.
"This is a very broad definition of sexual violence — it is unwanted sexual activity.
"It might be that women feel more confident in being able to identify that and call it out as that, but it also might be that it happens to women at younger age groups more."
Sexual, domestic and family violence support services argued that matched up with an extra demand for their services.
"We don't know if there's an increase in sexual violence," Full Stop Australia chief executive Hayley Foster said.
"But what we do know is that more and more people are actually recognising that they've experienced sexual violence, and more and more people are feeling more confident and safer to reach out for support.
"We're seeing that on our phone lines — even just in the last year, there was a 26 per cent increase in calls to the helpline, and many of those couldn't get through because of under resourcing."
Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth described the report as a "real wake up call".
"I feel really upset when I read this data," Ms Rishworth said.
"We know that … the impact that experiencing sexual violence has on a person – but particularly women who are very much experiencing this – can have ramifications for their whole lives."
Calls for a nationally consistent definition of sexual violence
Ms Raman said there were problems with how data was collected to properly identify the prevalence of sexual violence, because different jurisdictions had different definitions of sexual assault and sexual violence.
"What that means for us as a research organisation, as an evidence organisation is it's almost impossible to count," she said.
"You can't count things that are defined differently."
Ms Rishworth said it was a matter being considered by Commonwealth, state and territory governments.
"While the prevalence data out there now — there may be different definitions between states and territories — what this highlights to us is that work needs to be done, that we can't accept the these prevalence levels and must resolve to actually address them," she said.
"It really further stresses the current my commitment and resolve to finalise the next national plan to end violence against women and children by October.
"Sexual violence is part of that plan, and will be referred to in that plan."
