Two in five (or 39.8%) women have experienced physical, sexual and emotional violence by a partner in their lifetime according to the Sri Lanka National Survey on Violence against Women conducted in 2019 by the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) and the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS).
The Survey was supervised in 25 districts and conducted on all women above 15 years of age, with a focus on intimate partner violence.
The UNFPA survey reveals close to half (49.3%) of women who have experienced sexual violence by their partner did not seek formal help anywhere, while 52.3% of women stated the main reason for not leaving home was they did not want to leave their children.
Violence against women is a serious and widespread problem in Australia.
But violence against women is also preventable. To prevent violence against women we need to understand it. This page provides information on the prevalence and nature of violence in Australia.
2 in 5 women (39%) have experienced violence since the age of 15.4
Men are more commonly the perpetrators of physical violence, sexual harassment and sexual violence.5
Women are more likely to experience violence from someone they know than by a stranger (35% vs 11%).6
On average, one woman is killed every nine days by a current or former partner.7
In the year 2021/22, 4,620 women aged 15 years and over (average of 13 women/day) were hospitalised due to family and domestic violence.8
1 in 4 women (27%) has experienced violence, emotional abuse, or economic abuse by a cohabitating partner since the age of 15.9
1 in 3 women (31%) has experienced physical violence since the age of 15.10
1 in 5 women (22%) has experienced sexual violence since the age of 15.11
1 in 2 women (53%) has experienced sexual harassment in their lifetime.12 In most incidents of workplace sexual harassment, the harasser was male.13
Research shows that around 1 in 4 men in Australia aged 18 to 45 say they have used physical and/or sexual violence against an intimate partner
