Child sexual assault rates increased sharply across Australia between 2014 and 2024, and accelerated during the last three to five years, according to new research.
The University of Sydney study, which used national police-recorded victimisation, hospitalisations for assault, and child protection data from three national agency databases, found a 32% increase in the rate of sexual assault against girls aged from birth to nine, and a 51% increase for girls aged 10 to 17.
Sexual assaults against boys aged 10 to 17 increased 60% over the ten-year period, and 15.7% per year from 2021. The rate of sexual assaults against boys aged nine and younger was stable overall, but rose 17% per year after 2021.
Lead author Dr Lucy Grummitt said the results were worrying, and called for greater investment in prevention and early intervention.
“We are at a crisis point. Sexual assault and family and domestic violence have increased over the decade, but what’s particularly concerning is that the steepest increases were in the last 3 to 5 years,” she said.
The researchers said the reasons for the increases were unclear, but said they could be due to income inequality, economic stress, the effects of Covid lockdowns, and “shifts in gender norms and online cultures”.
They said improved reporting could also be a factor, but that it was “unlikely to fully explain the patterns observed, particularly the sharp acceleration seen in several outcomes in the post-2021 period”.
The study did not mention Australia’s record-high levels of immigration since the end of the Covid pandemic.
Child sexual exploitation expert Conrad Townson told ABC News the results of the study were “staggering” and “quite alarming”, especially the post-Covid escalation.
“Cost of living … all of those things that are going to increase stressors; we already know from a sexual violence perspective there were spikes,” he said.
“But what we have seen since that is still an increase over time, so we can no longer just blame Covid-19.”
Header image: Notorious childcare paedophile, Ashley Paul Griffith.
