Violence against Women – The Facts


According to the Statistics Canada:

    One-half of all Canadian women have experienced at least one incident of violence since the age of 16 (1993).
    One in three Canadian women were victims of assault by a spouse or partner (1993).
    Four in ten Canadian women were victims of sexual assault (1993).
    Of all the provinces, the highest rate of violence was reported by women in B.C. (59%) (1993).
    16% of all Canadian women (1.7 million) have been involved in at least one incident of sexual or physical assault by a date or boyfriend since the age of 16 (1993).
    Half of all women who reported an incident of dating violence were between the ages of 18-34 (1993).
    24% of women 18 – 24 years had been sexually and/or physically assaulted by a date or boyfriend. This figure is 50 per cent higher than the national figure of 16 per cent (1993).
    In Canada, almost 75 women are murdered by their partner each year (2006).
    98% of sex offenders are men and 82% of the survivors of these assaults are girls and women (1999).


The Statistics Canada Homicide in Canada 2000 reported that:

    Women were the victims in three of four spousal murders.
Police and Crime Summary Statistics for B.C. in 2000 indicate that.
    10,121 incidents of spousal assault were reported.
    78.2% of the accused were males.
    12.9% of the accused were females.
    8.9% of reports involved both spouses assaulting each other.


According to the Canadian Crime Statistics, 2000 report:

Male on female violence accounted for the majority (46.5%) of all violent crime in Canada.
    37.8% was attributed to male on male violence.
    Female on female crime – where women were both the accused and the victim – accounted for 8.1% of the total.
    Female on male violence accounted for the lowest percentage of all violent crime in Canada at 7.6%.
In 2000, according to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, globally at least one in three women and girls is beaten or sexually abused in her lifetime.