There are some hideous figures hidden in the Australian Bureau of Statistics recent release titled Victims of Crime, highlighting just how much more work work needs to be done.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The often bland numbers of the series conceal the human, mental and in turn social cost of many of these crimes and few more so that the victims of sexual assault.
For a city like Ballarat that has known too well the scourge of institutionalised sex abuse of innocent children particularly by trusted catholic clergy, known its generational suffering and mental damage, these figures make for sobering reading.
Overall sexual assault in Victoria rose for the third consecutive year, from 4,719 victims in 2015 to 5,381 victims in 2016 a jump of 14 per cent, the largest percentage increase since recording began in 2010. While these can be interpreted as good increases from a point of view of increased reporting, reflecting confidence in prosecution and an end to the poisonous corruption of concealment, it shows how much more needs to be done to change attitudes and ensure protection. In 2016, more than four out of five victims of sexual assault were female and a quarter of these were aged under 19 years. Male victims were most likely to have been aged between 10 and 14 years. And these figures point to an even darker problem in our society.
Almost three quarters of sexual assault victims know their offender. Even more harrowing, victims under nine years old of sexual assault are three times more likely to be abused by a family member.
Even in the slightly older age group of up to 14 years, family members account for almost 40 per cent of sexual abuse, over three times that of strangers. Known paedophiles and escapees from Corella Place may fill the headlines but there is potentially a far greater danger within our own homes.
The number of victims may be relatively small, (203 children under 9 abused by a family member in Victoria in 2016) but these are 203 lives potentially ruined. The tragedy of a single victim should never be something we accept as inevitable.
The massive Royal Commission into Institutionalised Sexual Abuse has done some extraordinary work in uncovering one deplorable part of our history and hopefully set it on the path to healing but intra-familial sexual abuse is a horror occurring in our midst in 2017. Protection of all children from this deplorable cruelty must be a priority.
