Canadian Statistics on Family Violence

Family Violence in Canada: A Statistical Profile

Statistics Canada, 2011.Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics under the Federal Family Violence Initiative

Find out more about violence toward spouses, children and youth, seniors and family related homicides from 2000 to 2009.

Here are some highlights from the report:

Spousal Violence:

Definition: encompasses physical and sexual violence, as well as emotional and financial abuse, perpetrated by a current or former legal or common-law spouse.

• 6% of Canadians with a current or former spouse reported being physically or sexually victimized by their spouse in the 5 years preceding the survey.
• Less than one-quarter of spousal violence victims report the incident to police (22% in 2009).
• The proportion of victims who reported the most serious forms of spousal violence such as being sexually assaulted, beaten, choked or threatened with a gun or knife was similar to 2004.
• Those aged 25 to 34 years old were three times more likely than those aged 45 and older to state that they had been physically or sexually assaulted by their spouse.
• In 2009, females who reported spousal violence were about three times more likely than males (34% versus 10%3 ) to report that they had been sexually assaulted, beaten, choked
  or threatened with a gun or a knife by their partner or ex-partner in the previous 5 years.
• Females were more likely than males to report multiple victimizations, at 57% and 40% respectively.
• In 2009, 22% of spousal violence victims stated that they had been sexually assaulted, beaten, choked, or threatened with a gun or a knife, a proportion that did not differ significantly from 2004 (29%).
• In 2009, victims of spousal violence were less likely to report the incident to police than in 2004.

Violence against Children & Youth:

• Police-reported data for 2009 indicate that children and youth under the age of 18 were most likely to be sexually victimized or physically assaulted by someone they knew (85% of incidents).
• Nearly 55,000 children and youth were the victims of a sexual offence or physical assault in 2009, about 3 in 10 of which were perpetrated by a family member.
• Six in ten children and youth victims of family violence were assaulted by their parents. The youngest child victims (under the age of three years) were most vulnerable to violence by a parent.
• In 2009, the rate of family-related sexual offences was more than four times higher for girls than for boys. The rate of physical assault was similar for girls and boys.

Spousal and Common-law Homicide

• Between 2000 and 2009, spousal homicides accounted for 16% of all solved homicides and nearly half (47%) of all family-related homicides.
• Females were more likely to be the victims of family-related homicide, particularly spousal homicide. Over the past 30 years, the rate of spousal homicides against females has consistently been about three to four times higher than that for males.
• Between 2000 and 2009, 40% of spousal homicides involved common-law partners and 36% involved married spouses. Another 23% were against separated spouses and 2% were against divorced spouses.
• The majority of male victims were killed by a common-law partner (66%), female victims were slightly more likely to have been killed by their legally married spouse (39%) than by a common-law partner (33%).
• Female victims of spousal homicide were more likely than male victims to be killed by a partner from whom they were separated (26% versus 11%).
• Stabbings were the most common method used to commit spousal homicide, more commonly used against males (72%) than females (32%).
• Female victims were more likely than male victims to be shot (26% versus 11%), strangled, suffocated or drowned (22% versus 4%) or beaten to death (16% versus 5%).

Homicide of Children & Youth:

• Between 2000 and 2009, there were 326 homicides against children and youth (0 to 17 years) committed by a family member, accounting for 7% of all solved homicides and 21% of all family-related homicides.
• Homicides against children and youth were committed more often by family members than
  non-family members.
• The risk of homicide by family members tends to be highest for infants (less than one year of age); Between 2000 and 2009, the rate of family-related homicide against infants was nearly triple the rate of 1 to 3 year-olds, the next highest age group.
• Parents were almost invariably the accused person identified in family-related homicides against infants, accounting for about 98% of all such homicides between 2000 and 2009.