Introduction
Acts of violence can affect anyone. But some people, such as those with disability, may be especially vulnerable to experiencing violence.
What is violence, abuse and intimate partner violence?
Violence
Violence can take many forms. Two main types are:
- Sexual – behaviours of a sexual nature carried out against a person’s will, such as sexual assault (for example, rape, indecent assault and attempts to force a person into sexual activity) or threat of sexual assault.
- Physical – incidents involving the use or threat of physical force with the intent to harm or frighten a person, such as physical assault or threat of physical assault.
Violence can be perpetrated by strangers or by someone the person knows.
In this section, violence is defined as any incident involving the occurrence, attempt or threat of physical or sexual assault. Sexual assault excludes unwanted sexual touching, which is defined as sexual harassment.
Abuse
Abuse can also take many forms. In this section, abuse refers to physical and sexual abuse of a child under the age of 15 by an adult. These are defined as:
- Sexual – any act involving a child in sexual activity beyond their understanding or contrary to currently accepted community standards.
- Physical – any deliberate physical injury (including bruises) (ABS 2017a).
In this section, abuse excludes discipline that accidentally resulted in injury; emotional abuse; and physical and sexual abuse by someone under the age of 18.
Intimate partner violence
In this section, intimate partner includes current partner (who the respondent lives with), previous partner (who the respondent lived with), boyfriend/girlfriend/date and ex-boyfriend/ex-girlfriend (who the respondent never lived with). Intimate partner violence includes sexual and/or physical violence by an intimate partner.
Past experiences of violence
Personal Safety Survey
Data in this section are sourced from the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) 2016 Personal Safety Survey (PSS). This survey collects information from men and women aged 18 and over.
In the PSS, a person is considered to have disability if they had one or more conditions which have lasted, or are likely to last, for at least 6 months and restrict everyday activities.
The severity of disability is defined by whether a person needs help, has difficulty, or uses aids or equipment, with 3 core activities – self-care, mobility, and communication – and is reported for mild, moderate, severe, and profound limitation. People who always or sometimes need help with one or more core activities are referred to in this section as ‘people with severe or profound disability’.
Timeframes for analysis of experiences of violence by people with disability
The PSS collects information about disability at the time of the interview, whereas questions on violence relate to either the previous 12 months or since the age of 15. It is therefore not possible to determine whether a person had disability at the time of experiencing violence. As such, care should be taken when making inferences or comparisons between groups, especially when the incidents of violence or abuse had occurred more than 12 months ago (ABS 2017a).
This section reports mostly on proportions of people with disability who had experienced violence since the age of 15. This type of reporting may help understand how many people with disability may require access to support services for past experiences of violence, but should not be interpreted as disability being a risk factor for, or outcome of, experiencing violence (ABS 2021).
Other considerations relevant to interpreting estimates of experience of violence by people with disability
While the PSS is the best available source of data about the experience of violence and abuse, care should be taken when using it for estimates related to people with disability. In addition to the timeframes considerations above, other reasons are:
- the PSS uses the ABS Short Disability Module to identify ‘disability or restrictive long-term health condition’. This module is not as effective in identifying disability as the questions used in the ABS Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers (SDAC), and may overestimate the number of people with less severe forms of disability
- the PSS does not collect information about experiences of violence in proxy interviews (where the selected respondent is incapable of answering for themselves; for instance, due to a communication disability). This results in a small underrepresentation of persons with a communication disability who are unable to communicate at all. However, ABS assess that this does not affect the overall national representativeness of people with disability in the PSS sample (ABS 2021)
- the PSS collects only from private dwellings and does not collect data from people living in institutional care settings.
In Australia, it is estimated that:
- more than one-third (37%) of adults who have experienced at least one incident of violence after the age of 15 have disability
- close to half (46%) who have experienced abuse before the age of 15 have disability (ABS 2017b).
Adults with disability are more likely to have past experiences of violence than those without disability. Of adults with disability, an estimated:
- 1 in 2 (47% or 2.7 million) have experienced violence after the age of 15, compared with 1 in 3 (36% or 4.5 million) without disability
- 1 in 5 (20% or 1.1 million) have experienced abuse before the age of 15, compared with 1 in 10 (11% or 1.3 million)
- 1 in 17 (5.8% or 332,000) have experienced violence sometime in the previous year, compared with 1 in 19 (5.2% or 656,000)
- 3 in 4 (74% or 2.0 million) of those who experienced violence have experienced multiple incidents of violence, compared with 6 in 10 (62% or 2.8 million) (ABS 2017b).
Adults with disability, especially those with severe or profound disability, are more likely than adults without disability to have past experiences of violence regardless of type:
- 16% (935,000) of adults with disability have experienced sexual violence after the age of 15, compared with 9.6% (or 1.2 million) without disability
- 43% (2.5 million) have experienced physical violence, compared with 32% (4.1 million) without disability
- 21% (1.2 million) have experienced intimate partner violence, compared with 13% (1.7 million) without disability (Table VIOLENCE.1 and Figure VIOLENCE.1).
Women with disability report higher rates of past sexual violence and intimate partner violence than their male counterparts. Men with disability report higher rates of past physical violence (Figure VIOLENCE.1). This is also the case for adults without disability, although the rates of past experiences of violence are generally higher for men and women with disability than without:
- 1 in 4 (25% or 748,000) women with disability have experienced sexual violence after the age of 15, compared with 15% (or 978,000) without disability
- 1 in 14 (6.6% or 187,000) men with disability have experienced sexual violence after the age of 15, compared with 3.9% (or 241,000) without disability
- 2 in 5 (40% or 1.2 million) women with disability have experienced physical violence after the age of 15, compared with 26% (or 1.7 million) without disability
- almost half of men (47% or 1.3 million) with disability have experienced physical violence after the age of 15, compared with 38% (or 2.4 million) without disability (ABS 2017b).
Table VIOLENCE.1: Proportion of adults(a) who experienced violence since age 15(b), by disability status(c) and type of violence, 2016 (%)
Type of violence |
Severe or profound disability |
Other disability status |
All with disability |
Without disability |
Sexual violence(d)
|
24.0
|
15.2
|
16.3
|
9.6
|
Physical violence(e)
|
43.9
|
43.0
|
43.1
|
32.1
|
Intimate partner violence(f)
|
28.5
|
19.7
|
20.8
|
13.2
|
Total who experienced violence
|
48.8
|
46.7
|
47.0
|
35.9
|
(a) People aged 18 and over living in households.
(b) Experience of violence after age 15 (in last year or previously). Includes sexual violence and physical violence.
(c) Disability status is determined at the time of the survey. It does not indicate whether a person had disability at the time of an incident of violence.
(d) Includes sexual assault and sexual threat.
(e) Includes physical assault and physical threat.
(f) Includes sexual and/or physical violence perpetrated by a current partner (living with), previous partner (has lived with), boyfriend/girlfriend/date and ex-boyfriend/ex-girlfriend (never lived with).
Note: Components may not add to total as people may have experienced multiple types of violence. A person who experienced sexual and physical violence is counted separately for each type of violence they experienced but only once in the aggregated total.
Source: ABS 2017b; see also Table VIOL3.