Child protection Australia 2017–18

In 2017–18 there were 32,000 children in substantiated abuse or neglect cases. This was a rate of 8.5 per 1,000 children aged 0–17 years.

Children aged under 1 were most likely to be the subject of a substantiation (17.2 per 1,000 children) and those aged 15–17 were least likely (4.1 per 1,000 children).

Emotional abuse was the most common substantiated abuse type (59%), followed by neglect (17%) and physical abuse (15%). Sexual abuse was more common among girls; other types of abuse were similar among both genders (Figure 6).

Remoteness and Socioeconomic areas

Overall, children from Very remote areas were 4 times as likely as those from Major cities to be the subject of a substantiation (26.1 per 1,000 compared with 7.0 per 1,000) (Figure 7).

Figure 7: Children who were the subjects of substantiations, by remoteness area, Australia, 2017–18 (rate)

Source: Child protection Australia 2017–18 Figure 3.5 and Table S11.

Of children who were the subject of a substantiation, 36% were from the lowest socioeconomic areas and Indigenous children were more likely to be from the lowest socioeconomic areas (45%) compared with non-Indigenous children (33%) (Figure 8).