Statscan’s family-violence figures paint grim picture for twentysomething women

Canadian women in their early twenties were at the greatest risk of domestic violence from their partners in 2013, Statistics Canada says.

In its profile of domestic abuse for that year, Statistics Canada found some 88,000 victims of family violence and 90,300 victims of police-reported violence by an intimate partner. (The latter includes current or former spouses or dating partners, including those who do not live together.) Over all, men and women were most likely to face violence from a partner in their twenties and thirties, but women aged 20 to 24 had the highest rate of intimate-partner violence, at about 1,127.7 per 100,000 people.

Who are the abusers?

Of the victims of intimate-partner violence, 53 per cent were abused by a dating partner, and 47 per cent by spouses.

In 17 per cent of family-violence cases, the accused abuser was a parent, and an extended family member – such as an in-law, uncle or grandparent – in 14 per cent of cases. Sibling violence made up 11 per cent of cases, while 10 per cent of the time the accused person was the victim’s own child.

Who are the victims?

Statscan found that almost seven in 10 family violence victims were female in 2013. By contrast, in violent crimes that weren’t family-related, women were victims only 46 per cent of the time.

Of all victims of intimate-partner violence reported to police, nearly 80 per cent were women.

How prevalent is it?

Family violence in 2013 made up more than one-quarter of all violent crimes reported to police. That’s around the same level as 2011, when family violence accounted for 26 per cent of all police-reported violent crime.

How prevalent is family violence in your community? Check Statscan's chart

Graphics by Murat Yukselir/The Globe and Mail