Women

A Minute of Silence

STATISTICS ON VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

• Every week, at least one woman in Canada is murdered by a boyfriend or spouse
 
Source - Survey of Spousal Assaults Reported to Police in 1995 in British Columbia, p.10
• Of women who were murdered by their partners, more than one-half had previously reported domestic violence to the police
 
Source - Homicides had a history of reported domestic violence (Family Violence in Canada: A Statistical profile 1999, p.37)
• As many as 1 out of 5 young women in high school are in abusive relationships
 
Source - 1 out of 5 young women studied in Toronto secondary schools were experiencing abuse in their relationships (Violence Against Women In Relationships: A British Columbia Fact Sheet, p.5
• 60% of all sexual assault victims are children under 18 years of age
 
Source - 60% of all sexual assault victims are children and youth under 18 (Family Violence in Canada: A Statistical Profile 1999, p.27)
• More than 13 women and girls are sexually assaulted every day in BC
 
Source - In 1998, there were 4,910 sexual assaults reported to the police in British Columbia (Appendix B: 1998 Crime and Police Statistics, p.108)
• Some women have been beaten by their partners 35 times before they ever call the police
 
Source - Up to 35 violent assaults may have occurred before a woman calls the police (Violence Against Women in Relationships Policy, p.2)
• Every year, over 90,000 Canadian women and children are admitted to shelters for battered women
 
Source - From April 1997 to March 1998, 90,792 women and children were admitted to 413 battered women shelters across Canada - 47,962 women and 42,830 children (Canada's Shelters For Abused Women. Juristat, Vol.19, No.6, p.4)
• In the time it took you to read this, a woman or girl somewhere in Canada was sexually assaulted
  Source - Only 10% of sexual assaults on women are reported to the police. Extrapolating from these data, there are 509,860 reported and unreported sexual assaults in Canada per year; that's 1,397 per day, which means that every minute of every day, a woman or child in Canada is being sexually assaulted (Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women CRIAW Fact Sheet, p.2)