Childhood experience of abuse

Living peacefully and feeling safe

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Metric

Proportion of people who have experienced physical or sexual abuse before the age of 15 years

Why this matters

Childhood experience of abuse can severely impact upon mental health and health risk behaviours throughout a person’s life. The Australian Child Maltreatment Study 2023 found that people aged 16 years and above who experienced childhood maltreatment were 2.8 times more likely to experience a form of mental health disorder than those who had not experienced maltreatment. They were also 2.6 times more likely to have a severe alcohol use disorder.

Progress

The 2021-22 ABS Personal Safety Survey found that:

  • 14% of people aged 18 years and over experienced physical and/or sexual abuse by an adult before the age of 15
  • females are more likely than males to have experienced abuse before the age of 15 (18% compared with 11%).
  1. Refers to the number of males/females aged 18 years and over who have experienced abuse by an adult before the age of 15, expressed as a percentage of all males/females aged 18 years and over.
  2. The ABS Personal Safety Survey (PSS) data represents historical experiences of childhood physical and/or sexual violence. It does not provide a current prevalence rate of child physical or sexual abuse and does not collect maltreatment data, such as neglect or emotional abuse. 

Note: Data represents lifetime experience and is not suitable for comparison over time.

Data Source
ABS Personal Safety Survey - Table 1.3

See the ABS Childhood abuse publication for more statistics about childhood physical/sexual abuse and witnessing parental violence, relationship to perpetrator, characteristics of the first incident and relationship between childhood experiences and partner violence and abuse.