How many children are abused in care?

In 2020–21, 1,442 children were the subject of a substantiation of abuse in care.

Among these children:

  • 41% were aged 10–14 at the time of substantiation, followed by those aged 5–9 (27%) and 15 and over (22%).
  • More were girls (54%) than boys (46%).
  • 46% were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.

Figure 1: Children who were the subject of a substantiation of abuse in care, by age and sex, 2020–21

This figure is a clustered column chart that shows the age and sex distribution. Most children were in the 10–14 and 5–9 age groups, and there were more girls than boys.

Source: Supplementary Table 6.

Type of abuse

The type of abuse presented here is that considered most likely to place the child at risk or be most severe in the short term – this is known as the ‘primary’ type of abuse.

In 2020–21, physical abuse was the most common primary type of abuse in care (32%), followed by emotional abuse (28%), sexual abuse (21%), and neglect (19%).

There was some variation based on age, sex and Indigenous status.

Among boys, physical and emotional abuse were most common (37% and 30% of boys, respectively), while physical and sexual abuse were most common for girls (29% and 28% of girls, respectively). 

Figure 2: Children who were the subject of a substantiation of abuse in care, by type of abuse and sex, 2020–21

This figure is a stacked column chart that shows how type of abuse varied by sex. Physical and emotional abuse were most common for boys, while physical and sexual abuse were most common for girls.

Source: Supplementary Table 5.

Among those aged 10–14 and 15 and over at the time of substantiation, physical abuse was most common (34% and 37% of those age groups, respectively), whereas emotional abuse was most common among under 5’s and 5–9 year olds (34% and 33%, respectively).

Figure 3: Children who were the subject of a substantiation of abuse in care, by type of abuse and age, 2020–21

This figure is a stacked column chart that shows how type of abuse varied across age groups. Physical abuse was most common among those aged 10–14 and 15 and over, whereas emotional abuse was most common among under 5’s and 5–9 year olds.

Source: Supplementary Table 4.

Physical and emotional abuse were the most common types of abuse among both Indigenous children (34% and 26%, respectively) and non-Indigenous children (31% and 29%). Sexual abuse was more common among Indigenous children (23%) than non-Indigenous children (18%). 

Figure 4: Children who were the subject of a substantiation of abuse in care, by type of abuse and Indigenous status, 2020–21

This figure is a stacked column chart that shows how type of abuse varied across age groups. Physical abuse was most common among those aged 10–14 and 15 and over, whereas emotional abuse was most common among under 5’s and 5–9 year olds.

Source: Supplementary Table 3.

Rate of abuse among all children in care

Currently, it is not possible to estimate the rate of abuse among all children in care because:

  • Data are based on the date of substantiation (not date of abuse) so may include historical cases of children who were in care at the time the abuse occurred, but subsequently exited care before the date of the substantiation. This may mean it is not possible to identify a directly comparable numerator and denominator for use in rate calculations. It may only be feasible to identify a ‘best estimate’ of all children in the in-care population to use as a denominator.
  • Abuse in care substantiations data include children in out-of-home care, and children on selected types of court orders who may be in other (non-out-of-home care) living arrangements. Currently, there are no readily available data on this population. Data are readily available for the out-of-home care population; however, this is a narrower scope than the abuse in care substantiations data (so any comparisons may overestimate the rate of abuse in care).

The following information provides some context for the key findings of this report, but should not be used to make direct comparisons:

  • There were 1,442 children who were the subject of a substantiation in 2020–21 for abuse that occurred in care.
  • 56,456 children were in out-of-home care at some time during 2019–20 (representing 1.0% of all children aged 0–17). This represents a narrower scope than the abuse in care substantiations data in this report, so any comparisons may overestimate the rate of abuse in care. Data for 2020–21 were not available at the time of writing.