Boys’ sexual assault shame
TEENAGE girls are the most at-risk group for sexual assault in Australia and teenage boys are the most likely perpetrators, a new report has shown.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found sexual assault rates for females aged 15 to 19 – 840 victims per 100,000 – were five-and-a-half times higher than the average for all women.
Teenage boys are the most likely group to offend with males aged 15 to 19 years committing sexual assaults at a rate of 103 offenders per 100,000. In comparison male offending in each of the older age groups up to the mid-40s was steady at around 64 per 100,000.
Overall, the research found that a total of 18,300 sexual assaults reported to police in 2018 represented a 35 per cent increase since 2010.
The rate of sexual assaults reported was seven times higher for females than males.
“The proportion of women aged 18 and over who were sexually assaulted at least once in the 12 months prior to the survey increased from 1.0 per cent in 2012 to 1.6 per cent in 2016,” AIHW spokeswoman Louise York said. “The proportion of males was similar for both years (0.4 per cent in 2012 and 0.6 per cent in 2016).
“In 2016 it was estimated perpetrators of sexual assault were four times as likely to be someone known to the victim as they were to be a stranger.”
Jaci Rogash was 15 when she was raped by a teenage boy she knew – the scars of the assault remained with her for many years after, even pushing her towards a suicide attempt.
“We hung out a couple of times and every time he asked if I wanted to have sex I said no and one time he decided he would do that anyway,” the now 34-year-old said.
“The first thing he said to me after was ‘don’t scream rape’. I denied it happened for eight months and I spiralled and didn’t care about anything. I hit a very dark place.”
The report is pre-COVID but the Australian Institute of Criminology has found that 4.2 per cent of women living with their partners experienced sexual violence in the first three months of the pandemic.